and are sometimes used interchangeably. At the level of a national legal system, a national legal tradition relates the legal system to the culture of which it is a part.

In contrast, H. Patrick Glenn avoided formulating any single definition of legal tradition "because the (various) definitions are out there" and "one must simply work with them". Glenn did however define "tradition" as a "loose conglomeration of data, organized around a basic theme or themes". The metaphor of a bee swarm has been used