II. Characteristics of American Legal Educationa.
二、美国法律教育的特征
a.The basis of legal education in America is the common law.
(1)美国法律教育的基础是普通法。
The principal distinction between common law and civil law is that the former relies on the English principle of the binding force of precedent.
而普通法系与民法法系之间最主要的区别是，前者所依赖的是先例具有束约力这一英国法原则。
Thus, a case decided by a court today must be consistent with similar cases previously decided, even if the case is very old.
因而，今天法院对案件所做的判决必须同以前对类似案件的判决相一致，即使此案件已经非常古老。
The key concept is that the reasoning by the judges in prior cases must be applied to today's cases so that the law is predictable.
其主要理念是法官在以前案件所作的推理必须适用于现在的案件，因此使法律具有可预测性。
Yet the common law is flexible since judges can use prior legal reasoning to reach different but equitable outcomes in similar cases.
然而，普通法依然是非常灵活的，因为法官能够运用以前的法律推理在类似的案件中得出不同但不失公平的结果。