If you come from a country that practises civil law (where a written legal code holds sway), then you must first spend a year getting a Master of Laws at an American university.

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Peru needs further reforms, such as a new legal code for land and water rights, as well as more energetic measures to tackle widespread poverty.

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And a weakening legal code made bankruptcy almost respectable.

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For a 20-character code, the Legal Entity Identifier generates a lot of passion.

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But the manufacturing of new legal code exacts a toll of its own.

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The Russian legal code is a thicket of often contradictory rules and responsibilities.

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Legal changes, such as a revision to the bankruptcy code that allowed judges to reduce mortgage debt, could help.

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They would often insist that the answer to a legal question should consist of nothing more than reading the applicable code section, which should take no more than 20 minutes.

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Legal experts spent most of the 1980s and early '90s drafting a new code, which stalled at the Justice Ministry.

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Within large mutual fund organizations, only in- house legal counsel is in a position to monitor manager personal trading compliance with the code of ethics.

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The old legal system was also tossed out, and a new one based on the Swiss civil code was imposed.

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