The relevance of lawyers and jurists in the process of state-building in nineteenth-century Latin America has been widely acknowledged. This collection of essays assembles a series of studies dealing with the interaction between the legal world and the wider political, economic, social and cultural processes in which the transition from colonial status to independent nationhood took place. Rather than viewing this transition as a radical transformation of judicial institutions and practices, emphasis has been put upon the continuities between those two phases. The chapters range from general overviews of both colonial and republican Spanish America to more detailed case studies of Mexico, Brazil and Argentina. contributors include: Linda Arnold, Virginia Tech; Osvaldo Barreneche, Universidad Nacional de la Plata, Argentina; Charles R. Cutter, Purdue University; Thomas H. Holloway, Cornell University; Victor M. Uribe, Florida International University.