Common law
The common lawso named because it was "common" to all the king's courts across Englandoriginated in the practices of the courts of the English kings in the centuries following the Norman Conquest in 1066. The British Empire spread the English legal system to its historical colonies, many of which retain the common law system today. These "common law systems" are legal systems that give great precedential weight to common law, and to the style of reasoning inherited from the English legal system.
Commonwealth Lawyers Association
The CLA began as the Commonwealth & Empire Law Conference, first held in London in 1955. The Commonwealth Legal Bureau was subsequently established in 1968. The first Commonwealth Law Conference was held in Scotland in 1977. At the Commonwealth Law Conference held in Hong Kong in 1983 it was agreed that the CLB should be replaced by the Commonwealth Lawyers’ Association (CLA) and a Constitution was subsequently adopted in Jamaica in 1986.