There are probably many ways to deal with the issue of law, among which the historical perspective figures prominently. However, in this presentation, I contend that the emphasis on the historical process of law leads to miss the fundamental phenomenon which should be addressed when dealing with modern law: the practice of legal decision-making, that is, the ways in which law users make sense of the rules at their disposal (law in the books) and orient to them in the course of their daily occupational practices (law in action). My contention is, thus, that we must turn to people’s actual practices in concrete settings and within specific and identified constraints. In other words, we must observe and describe people’s practical orientations to what they identify as the applicable rules, to the ways in which they refer to, use, follow, manipulate, substantiate, or invoke such rules. This can be achieved at, at least, two levels: the search for procedural correctness and the search for legal relevance. In both cases, judges, using the techniques of precedents and templates, are processing legal rules in a more and more standardized way. My conclusion is that the methodology and epistemology adopted by contemporary judges, the legal material on which they draw, and the means by which they refer to this material have fundamentally altered the nature of legal cognition and of legal decision-making.