Book excerpt: Michael Taggart was the Alexander Turner Professor of Law in the University of Auckland, New Zealand until his retirement in 2008. He has worked extensively on public law, in particular administrative law, privatisation and the public/private law divide as well as on legal history. He has visited and taught at the Universities of Melbourne, New South Wales, Toronto, Cambridge, Paris II, Victoria at Wellington, Saskatchewan, Western Ontario, Queen's University at Kingston and Osgoode Hall Law School. This book of essays, dedicated to him by a group of his friends including academic colleagues, practitioners and judges, marks his enormous contribution to the common law.