I often hear the corpus juris civilis talked about as the foundation for modern civil laws but how close is it actually? Was it truly 1500 years ahead of its time or was it just a fantastic building block?
Not to discourage other answers but you might be interested in
How big an influence is Corpus Juris Civilis for modern law? by /u/idjet.
If I am permitted to make a reading suggestion, you might want to take a look at "The Civil Law Tradition" by John Merryman. It goes over the civil law system in contrast to the common law system and mentions the influence of Justinian in developing the former.