In the literature, not quite the right stereotype is widespread about the complete lack of codification in common law countries both in their historical and legal experience and in the current legal field of this system. The article describes the protective, anticodistic position of common law lawyers, their main counterarguments and attempts to substantiate the main threat of the idea of codification, which poses a quasi-threat to the very spirit of common law. The reasons for the historical failure of the codification project in the UK and, in contrast, quite a successful theoretical discussion and legislative codification in individual British colonies are analyzed.