Clear Answers for Common Questions

Law is a system of rules a society sets to maintain order and protect harm to persons and property. Such systems are ancient, dating back at least to the Code of Hammurabi, written by an ancient Babylonian king around 1760 BC. Today, most countries have tens or hundreds of thousands ...

Common law is a legal system that is largely formed by the decisions previously made by courts and not imposed by legislatures or other government officials. The reasoning used to interpret this type of law is known as casuistry, or case-based reasoning. It is a strict, principle-based reasoning ...

Family law covers all legal matters pertaining to family, including civil unions, marriages, divorces, adoption, prenuptial agreements, child custody, and property settlements. Although family courts in the United States hear cases dealing with people of varied social and economic classes, they are overloaded with cases concerning those who are disadvantaged ...

Patent law is a specific area of law that encompasses the legal regulation, jurisprudence, and enforcement of specific intellectual property rights known as patent rights. A patent is a government issued right granted to individuals or groups that protects their original inventions from being made, used, or sold by others ...

Natural law theory is a philosophical and legal belief that all humans are governed by basic innate laws, or laws of nature, which are separate and distinct from laws which are legislated. Legislated laws are sometimes referred to as “positive laws” in the framework of natural law theory, to make ...

Labor laws are laws which are designed to protect workers. Many nations around the world have laws of this type, which vary widely in scope and complexity, and enforcement of such laws is also quite variable. Consumers who are concerned about working conditions and worker safety may actively seek out ...

Jurisprudence is the study of law, specifically legal philosophy and science. It has numerous branches that focus on a range of issues, from whether or not law should exist to what sort of penalties are appropriate for violations of the law. The field is largely dominated by Western laws and ...

Constitutional law relates to the study, practice, interpretation and administration of laws set forth by a country’s constitution. In the US, for example, the US Constitution is the basis for all constitutional law. Any legal subjects that deal with constitutional rights or violations are a part of this field ...

Case law is the body of available writings explaining the verdicts in a case. It is most often created by judges in their rulings, when they write their decisions and give the reasoning behind them, as well as citing precedents in other cases and statutes that had a bearing on ...

Antitrust laws, also known as competition laws, are legal rules to promote fair competition in the marketplace. These laws can apply to both businesses and individuals. Antitrust laws are designed to prevent actions that might hurt consumers or unfairly harm other businesses, such as the formation of monopolies, illegal cooperation ...

There is an old saying that one cannot legislate morality, but the concept behind a blue law comes as close as possible. In the modern sense of the term, a blue law is any ordinance that attempts to control the sale of commerce or limit business hours on Sunday, also ...

Ex post facto is Latin for "after the fact," or something changed after an act. It often refers to laws enacted after a crime or action has already been taken. This would render some people guilty of breaking laws applied after the fact, even if their actions were not considered ...

International law is a body of legal rules, regulations and accepted practices by which countries, organizations and people throughout the world interact with each other and with citizens of different countries. There are two basic categories of this type of law: public and private. Public international law deals with relationships ...

Civil procedure is legally defined as the procedure under which civil law is carried out. It refers to civil law, which encompasses laws pertaining to business, estates, legal contracts, domestic issues, accidents, and generally anything that is not considered criminal. There are instances in which civil and criminal procedure may ...

Employment laws are put into place to protect employees from any mistreatment by their employers and are a vital part of a country's efforts to protect its citizens. Most countries have their own version of laws protecting workers, but in general, employment laws address the following concerns: employees being ...

When someone commits a harmful act which leaves him or her open to a lawsuit which could result in an award of damages, this is known as a tort. Torts can be intentional or brought about through negligence, and they run the gamut from hitting someone while driving drunk to ...

Tort law is a branch of the law which covers civil wrongs, such as defamation and trespassing, among many other transgressions. Under tort law, if someone suffers a physical, legal, or economic harm, he or she may be entitled to bring suit. If the suit is deemed valid, damages may ...

Moore's Law, initially formulated by Gordon Moore, then Chairman of Intel, first appeared in a 1965 article in the 35th anniversary edition of Electronics, "Cramming more components onto integrated circuits." It asserts that the complexity of minimum-cost semiconductor components has doubled regularly each year since the first prototype ...

Criminal justice is the application or study of laws regarding criminal behavior. Those who study criminal justice include the police, those working in a judiciary capacity, and lawyers who either defend or prosecute those accused of a crime. Others work to advocate for changes in the current system of criminal ...

Lemon Laws were enacted to protect consumers from products that are plagued with serious defects. If an item cannot be satisfactorily repaired within a certain timeframe — usually within the warranty period - or if the item is not as good as new after so many repairs, it is considered a "lemon ...

A shield law is a law which protects people from certain lines of legal inquiry. Shield laws are most commonly used to protect journalistic integrity, and to offer certain protections to people involved in sexual assault cases. Not all nations have shield laws, and the nature of such laws varies ...

A sunset clause or provision is part of a law or statute that can repeal the law or parts of it at a specified time period. The history of using such clauses is lengthy, dating to the Roman Republic’s use of it to pass temporary laws when specific things ...

Good Samaritan Laws were devised as a way of protecting people who come to the aid of others. They stipulate that any person who comes to the aid of an injured or ill person cannot be blamed for any further injury or illness that results from the aid given. People ...

Many nations have adopted a form of a basic speed law, which states that motorists should travel at a rate of speed which is consistent with the driving conditions. This is not designed to replace posted speed limits, but merely to reflect the fact that safe rates of speed change ...

Shiur is the Hebrew word for study. A shiur is the study of the Talmud’s and Mishnah’s interpretations of a biblical passage from the Torah. The Torah is what Christians term the Old Testament. A shiur is rather like literary criticism that accounts for all interpretations of a ...

Murphy's Law is commonly expressed as "If anything can go wrong, it will." Sometimes "and at the worst possible time" is added at the end of the saying. Many problems, failures, and annoyances are attributed to Murphy's Law, but most people do not know where the name came ...

Situs refers to where something is physically located. In law situs, refers to the location of property for the means of determining which laws apply to the property. For example, the location or situs of a house in California could subject it to certain laws regarding home ownership, ways of ...

In law, standing, or locus standi is the ability for a plaintiff to bring proof that a current law does or will affect them negatively and substantially. The term is used when laws currently in operation are challenged. In order for a law to be successfully challenged, the person bringing ...

The Threefold Law is a belief held by some practitioners of Wicca. According to the Threefold Law, any energy which is put out into the world will be returned at three times its strength, whether this energy is positive or negative. Essentially, the law of threes is about reciprocity, and ...

A slip law is the first original publication of a Federal statute. Created by the Archivist of the United States, they are the first duplicate copies made of the original document, which is signed by the president. Slip laws are compiled in the United States Code, and have been made ...

A boutique law firm is a law firm which specializes in a specific aspect of the law, rather than offering general legal services and assistance. Such firms are quite popular with people who are entangled in complex branches of law such as maritime law, immigration law, and environmental law. The ...

The Truth in Lending Act is a federal law requiring full disclosure of all terms associated with any credit transactions. This includes all costs. The law was first passed in 1968 and was intended to provide consumers with some protection against lenders, especially those acting in a predatory way. This ...

A contract is an agreement between two or more parties to do, to not do or to promise something. Contracts can come in many forms — oral or written, implied or express and legally enforceable or not. The strongest contract, in terms of enforceability, includes an offer and an acceptance ...

Common-law voting is a practice in which each shareholder is granted one vote during an election process. Within the structure for common law voting, the number of shares held by a given shareholder is not taken into consideration. Shareholders with hundreds of shares in their possession will have no ...

The process of making a law in the United States is relatively straightforward. The system encourages input from a number of branches of government, as well as from citizens, ensuring that lawmaking is beneficial for the country as a whole. Understanding the lawmaking procedure can make it easier for citizens ...

The Order of the Coif is an honor society for high-achievers in the legal field. Membership is awarded to exceptionally talented legal students, practicing lawyers, judges, and instructors of law. As with other honor associations, it has a charter that dictates the standards of admission, along with a staff ...

The law of unintended consequences is the outgrowth of many theories, but was probably best defined by sociologist Robert K. Merton in 1936. Merton wrote an article, The Unanticipated Consequences of Purposive Social Action, which covers five different ways that actions, particularly those taken on a large scale as by ...

The mu-law is an algorithm used to compress the dynamic range for an audio signal transmitted over a telecommunication system. An algorithm is a series of calculations processed in a predefined order to within a computer or processor. The dynamic range of an audio signal is the ratio of ...

Kurzweil's law, or the law of accelerating returns, explains how positive feedback works in technological innovation and development: if you invent a better set of tools, you can then use those tools to invent newer and better tools more rapidly. Kurzweil's law was formulated in response to a ...

Say’s Law of Markets is a set of economic principles that are commonly associated with the concepts developed by Jean-Baptiste Say during the latter 18th and early 19th centuries. Say’s ideas focus on the underlying reasons for economic recessions and the roles that supply and demand play ...

The law of large numbers is a statistical theorem postulating that the sample average of random variables will approach the theoretical average as the number of random variables increases. In other words, the larger a statistical sample is, the more likely one is to get results more accurate of the ...

In Constitutional Law, or more specifically Immigration Law, an alien is anyone who is not a national or citizen of the United States. Any number of individuals living or staying within the borders of the United States can be considered aliens. All aliens are non-citizens, but a national is ...

When the president of the United States (POTUS) uses a presidential veto, it doesn't necessarily mean that the bill won't become a law. The US Constitution gives Congress a means to sign a bill into law after a presidential veto has occurred. In order to overturn a presidential ...

Theories of constitutional interpretation in the United States are varied and complex, but most fall into one of several major categories. Judges charged with deciding constitutional issues may subscribe to a number of different theories including originalism, textualism, intentionalism, contextualism, constructionism, pragmatism, non-interpretivism and dynamic evolution. Fortunately, many of ...

The Seventh Amendment of the US Constitution is a provision regarding when jury trial may be appropriate in civil suits. The text of the amendment is the following: "In Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be ...

Constitutionality, or the ability to pass constitutional muster, is the test for laws and statutes to ensure that they do not violate the Constitution. Each law is believed to be constitutional, unless or until it is struck down in whole or in part. However, it has long been held that ...

Sharia is Islamic law, which is taken from the Qur’an and from other sources depending upon one’s Muslim sect. The law may be applied completely in theocracies, or it may be applied partially, depending upon the country. Some predominantly Islamic countries interpret Sharia and have secular judicial systems ...

For copyright purposes, a sound recording differs from a musical composition when a person is applying for copyright status. The US copyright office makes distinction between the two, because a composition is the words and musical notation, while the recording is a form of performance. Additionally, a recording of spoken ...

Moore's Law is a concept that was first proposed in 1965 by Gorden E. Moore, one of the founders of Intel, a major American technology company. Simply put, it states that the number of transistors on a microchip will increase exponentially, typically doubling every two years. Since microchips are ...

The term bylaws is of Old Norse extraction and doesn’t refer to the term by in the modern sense. Instead, by translates to the word village, and you’ll note many cities and towns that end in by, such as Whidby Island. There are several modern meanings to the ...

The notably clean and well-kept public spaces in the country of Singapore are likely to make quite an impression on visitors. The same can be said for the items in Singapore law that enforce and ensure the spic and span public spaces. One such law is the well-publicized ...

The most common and perhaps the most important laws concerning cell phone use are those related to using a handheld cell phone while driving. These laws protect the safety of other motorists, as well as the driver, since people often become distracted when using a cell phone while trying to ...

A noise ordinance is a law created at local levels that pertains to the amount of noise, duration of noise, and source of sounds other than ambient noise that affect a community’s inhabitants. Basically, the law defines which sounds are and are not acceptable at any given time so ...

Zoning refers to a common practice in city planning, wherein a master plan is developed to decide how land should best be utilized. The master plan breaks a region up into various “zones,” dictating what sorts of things can be built in these zones and what kinds of businesses are ...

Slander is the spoken or transitory form of defamation of character, a legal term that refers to a falsehood presented as true which could harm the reputation of a person or entity. Slander also encompasses body gestures as in the case of sign language. If defamation of character is placed ...

Anti-sedition laws are laws which are designed to counteract the potential threat of sedition. Historically, many nations have had draconian anti-sedition laws, raising questions about free speech and the right to political commentary and expression. It can be very difficult for a government to strike a balance because ...