The comparative study of transplants and receptions investigates contacts of legal cultures and explores the complex patterns of change triggered by them. The study of legal transfers offers considerable intellectual rewards. It shows that the law is a complex phenomenon and corrects simplistic views regarding what law is and how it develops. The spread of legal institutions, ideals, ideologies, doctrines, rules, and so on, is often in the hands of professional elites. The study of transplants and receptions demonstrates that the knowledge and standing of those elites comes from interactions between the local and non-local dimensions of the law, that is, between the national and international spheres. This picture is true in Berlin and in New York, in London and in Lima, but it is also true in less cosmopolitan environments.