John Glover Roberts, Jr. (born January 27, 1955) is the 17th and current Chief Justice of the United States. He has served since 2005, having been nominated by President George W. Bush after the death of Chief Justice William Rehnquist. He has been described as having a conservative judicial philosophy in his jurisprudence. Roberts grew up in northern Indiana and was educated in a private school before attending Harvard College and Harvard Law School, where he was managing editor of the Harvard Law Review. After being admitted to the bar, he served as a law clerk for William Rehnquist before taking a position in the Attorney General's office during the Reagan Administration. He went on to serve the Reagan Administration and the George H. W. Bush administration in the Department of Justice and the Office of the White House Counsel, before spending fourteen years in private law practice. During this time, he argued thirty-nine cases before the Supreme Court. The most basic function of the American legal system is to maintain peace by resolving disputes. Federal and state courts, tribunals, and administrative bodies do this by applying laws to cases between specific individuals or organizations. The primary sources of applicable law are federal and state constitutions, statutes, and administrative regulations. Constitutions establish the structure of government, define and limit its power, and seek to protect individuals from unreasonable or unlawful exercises of that power. Legislatures enact statutescriminal laws, for examplethat govern a wide variety of conduct. Administrative bodies promulgate regulations to govern specific areas of business, such as telecommunications and securities. In theory, courts apply these existing laws rather than creating new law. The legislatures and administrative bodies, however, cannot always anticipate every possible set of circumstances, and the laws do not clearly dictate a result in every case. Frequently, too, the law is intentionally vague to give the courts flexibility to interpret it in ways which serve general public policies rather than to accomplish specific results. There are, however, constitutional limits on how vague a law may be. In general, it must fairly apprise individuals of behavior that it prohibits or compels. In practice, then, American courts often make law when they decide cases. Under the doctrine of stare decisis, courts at the same or lower level in the judicial hierarchy must follow the first court's interpretation of the law in subsequent cases with similar facts. Higher courts in the judicial hierarchy may either accept the lower court's interpretation or reverse it by interpreting the law differently. Courts in other states may rely on the first court's interpretation as persuasive authority concerning the application of similar laws in their states. This tradition of binding and persuasive authority is a by-product of the American judicial system's origins in the common law system of England. Origins of the American Judicial System: State Judicial Systems When America declared its independence in 1776, the 13 original colonies had largely informal judicial systems based loosely on the English system of common law. Common law is the body of law that developed in English courts on a