The Max Planck Institute for Legal History and Legal Theory in Frankfurt am Main brings together two fields of research that are rarely pursued side by side and in dialogue with each other: the history and the theory of law. Here, legal scholars work together with historians, sociologists, and social anthropologists – methodologically open and global in outlook, on law and on other normative orders. The Institute's research reaches from the Iberian Worlds of the early modern period and the common law world to the foundations of legal theory.

Founded in 1964, more than 70 researchers from across the world work at the Institute today.