Letters
Jul. 23, 2025
Why American law should stop following old English rules
While Dean Chemerinsky rightly criticizes the reliance on outdated English legal precedents, the U.S. legal system should go further by fully rejecting colonial-era English practices as binding and interpreting American laws based solely on national principles.
Michael M. Berger
Senior Counsel
Manatt, Phelps & Phillips LLP
2049 Century Park East
Los Angeles , CA 90067
Phone: (310) 312-4185
Fax: (310) 996-6968
Email: mmberger@manatt.com
USC Law School
Michael M. Berger is senior counsel at Manatt, Phelps & Phillips LLP, where he is co-chair of the Appellate Practice Group. He has argued four takings cases in the U.S. Supreme Court.
Far be it from me to disagree on constitutional precepts with Dean Erwin Chemerinsky. But something in his recent column on the "imperial Supreme Court" struck me as strange. Chemerinsky, "The rise of the imperial Supreme Court," Jul. 15, 2025.
I fully agree with his idea that it is absurd for us to adopt by rote as legal precepts those things that the British did before we revolted and separated...
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