How the Law Works

Question	Answer
Administrative law	System in which federal and state administrative agencies are empowered to make rules (regulations) affecting the area they regulate.
Attorney-client confidentiality	Principle that communications between a lawyer and a client can’t be disclosed to anyone by the lawyer. Also called attorney-client privilege.
Bill of Rights	First 10 amendments to the Constitution that guarantee our basic liberties.
Casebook method	System of studying law in which parts of cases illustrating a particular point of law are gathered together in a book.
Case law	Judicial opinions
Case or controversy	An active, real dispute between two or more parties; there must be a reasonable chance that the court’s decision will change the situation between the parties for the court to allow the suit.
Civil law	System in which courts interpret legal codes; that interpretation isn’t necessarily given weight by another court in a later proceeding.
Comity	Doctrine by which a U.S. court voluntarily chooses to accept a foreign court judgment.
Common law	System in which the law develops as cases are decided.
Concurrent jurisdiction	State courts share jurisdiction with federal courts on many issues.
Constitution	The source of law against which all other laws are measured. It lays out the structure of our government, specifies how Congress passes laws, and gives us an independent federal judiciary.
Counseling	Giving legal advice
Diversity jurisdiction	Federal court jurisdiction in cases where defendants and plaintiffs in a case come from different states. Under federal law, federal courts can hear disputes between parties who reside in different states, if the case is worth more than $75,000.
Domesticate	Filing a lawsuit in one state, using the judgment from another state as the basis of the claim.
Finding	A decision about a question of fact.
Holding (conclusion of law)	Statement by the court of how it believes the law applies to the particular set of facts before it; also called conclusion of law.
Immunity	Doctrine that prevents certain classes of defendants from being sued, no matter how meritorious the claim.
Interest analysis	Conflict of law theory in which courts look at the policies being promoted by different states’ laws to decide which state’s law should apply.
Jurisdiction	Authority of a court to hear the types of legal issues in a case, or to hear cases arising in a certain geographic area.
Limited jurisdiction	A court whose jurisdiction is limited to cases of a certain type; also called subject matter jurisdiction.
Legislative history	Recorded events and background documents providing a basis for determining the intent underlying a statute enacted by a legislature. Contains transcripts and other materials from committee hearings on a bill, the committee’s report, and any amendments to the bill on its way to becoming law.
Litigating	Carrying on the trial part of a lawsuit.
Mootness	Doctrine that a case will be dismissed when the parties in a case are no longer disputing something, even if they have in the past.
Municipal law	System of laws enacted by a local government. Building codes, health codes, and local traffic laws are municipal laws. Also called ordinances.
Negotiating	Bargaining about, arranging, or discussing a deal or compromise.
Pendent jurisdiction	A federal court’s right to decide a claim based on a non-federal issue if the non-federal claim depends on the same set of facts as does the federal claim.
Personal jurisdiction	The jurisdiction a court has over the defendant.
Petition for writ of certiorari	Petition asking the Supreme Court to hear an appeal of a case; gives arguments for why the Court should hear the case. Sometimes called a cert. petition. The Court isn’t obliged to issue a writ of certiorari and hear the case.
Precedent	A court decision on a question of law that is published and used as a basis for other court decisions, in the same court system, when those cases deal with similar legal issues. Precedent is either binding or nonbinding.
Preemption doctrine	Prohibits states from making laws that conflict with or try to exclude federal laws. The doctrine that a law passed by a higher authority overrules laws passed by a lower authority (state law can preempt local law, just as federal law preempts state law).
Procedural due process	Guarantees that the procedures used for administering the law are fair and that notice will be given before the government deprives a citizen of life, liberty, or property, so that the citizen has a full opportunity to protect his or her rights.
Removal	Provision that allows a case to be transferred from state court to federal court.
Res judicata	Legal doctrine that prevents parties from relitigating the same lawsuit once it has been through all possible appeals.
Ripeness	Doctrine that a case must have a real controversy, not just a likely one, before courts can decide it.
Socratic method	System of studying law in which students read cases to try to understand the law in a certain area. In class, professors question students on their understanding of the reading.
Standing	A person’s right to bring a lawsuit because the issues in the lawsuit directly affect him or her. The plaintiff in a case must demonstrate that he or she has suffered or will imminently suffer an injury in order to have standing to sue.
Statute of limitations	Law that says after a certain period of time, a plaintiff can no longer bring a claim, even if it’s meritorious.
Statutory law	Law passed by a legislative body and signed by the executive.
Substantive due process	Guarantee that a law isn’t unreasonable, arbitrary, or capricious.
Tort	A civil wrong
Venue	The judicial district in which a case may be tried.
Vested rights theory	Conflict of law theory that stresses where the event at issue took place.
Work-product	Any materials prepared by an attorney, or at the direction of an attorney, in anticipation of litigation, as well as the attorney’s strategies.
Work-product privilege	The rule that an attorney’s work product is protected from disclosure during discovery.
What is the law?	At its most basic level, law is a set of rules agreed upon by society that guide our conduct. As a rule, the more people (the bigger the “society”) to whom a law applies, the more formal the process that creates the law.
Code of Hammurabi	Created by King Hammurabi in ancient Babylon in the eighteenth century B.C.E. is one of the oldest known written laws. “an eye for an eye”
The influence of American law	Norman (Old French), German, Saxon, Scandinavian, and Roman aw reflects various conquests and invasions of England over many centuries. Our law also has been influenced by Spanish, French, Native American, and biblical law— resulting from our colonial past.
5 sources of American law	Listed in order of importance: 1. The U.S. Constitution and state constitutions 2. The U.S. Congress and state legislatures 3. Federal and state case law 4. Federal and state administrative agencies 5. Municipal law
Constitutions	The U.S. Constitution is the source of law against which all other laws are measured. The supreme law of the land, the Constitution, applies to all U.S. citizens, and all laws in the U.S. must comply with it. The foundation of the U.S. legal system, the Constitution lays out the structure of our government, specifies how Congress passes laws, gives us an independent federal judiciary, and serves many other important functions. The Constitution contains the Bill of Rights, the first 10 amendments to the Constitution that guarantee our basic liberties. The Constitution includes seven articles and 27 amendments, including the Bill of Rights.
Constitutions cont.....	The Constitution can be amended, if there’s enough public support. An amendment can be accomplished in two ways. One way is to have two-thirds of both houses of Congress (House of Representatives and Senate) vote in favor of it and then send the amendment out for ratification by three-fourths of the states. The other way is to have two-thirds of the states petition Congress directly. Then, a two-thirds majority of Congress must vote in favor of the amendment for it to take effect. States also have constitutions. While state constitutions must comply with the U.S. Constitution, there are otherwise very few restrictions on their contents.
Ratification	Is a process by which the states give confirmation and acceptance to an amendment that’s been approved by Congress. The same process is used when the United States signs an international treaty—the Senate must ratify the treaty before it can go into effect. To ratify means to approve formally.
Treaty	A formally concluded and ratified agreement between countries. A treaty is a formal written agreement entered into by actors in international law, namely sovereign states and international organizations. A treaty may also be known as an international agreement, protocol, covenant, convention, pact, or exchange of letters, among other terms.
Statutory Law	Statutory law is law that’s passed by a legislative body and signed by the executive. On the federal level, Congress passes bills and the president signs them into law. On the state level, the state legislature passes bills, which are then signed into law by the governor. Particularly on the federal level, laws have legislative histories. These legislative histories are official records of the debate on different versions of a bill as it progressed through Congress. All statutory law must be in accord with the U.S. Constitution. State statutes must also comply with their own state constitutions. Courts can and do declare laws invalid if they think the law conflicts with a constitution. Federal laws don’t have to comply with state constitutions, but state laws must comply with both the federal Constitution and the constitution of that state.
Required steps for a bill to become federal law.	1. A member of Congress must introduce the measure in the house of Congress of which he or she is a member. 2. The bill is referred to an appropriate legislative committee for hearings. 3. Assuming the committee is interested in the bill, it will hold hearings on the bill or refer the bill to a subcommittee for hearings. Witnesses interested in the bill testify before the committee—telling those members of Congress what they like or don’t like about the measure. 4. The committee meets to consider whether any amendments need to be added to the bill. 5. After the committee approves the amended bill, the house of Congress where the bill originated votes on it. 6. The bill goes to the other house, where a similar process begins again. 7. If the other house passes the measure, it goes to the president for approval. If the version passed by the second house is different, the bill goes to a conference committee to work out the differences. Then it’s sent to the president. 8. Once the president signs the bill, it becomes a law.
legislative history	Contains the transcripts and other materials from hearings on a bill, the committee’s report, and any amendments to the bill on its way to becoming law. The committee report has statements from the majority and minority political parties on their views of what the law is trying to address. Legislative histories are important because courts use them later to interpret the law if the language of the law is unclear. Legislative histories are Congress’s official statement of what it intended to accomplish by passing the law. Some bills become law with very little legislative history, while others have committee reports of more than 1,000 pages.
Congressional Record	A daily record of proceedings in Congress. It tells how each bill was voted on, which bills were sent to and from committee, and so on.
State laws	State laws can’t preempt federal law. This means that states can’t make laws that try to exclude federal laws or pass laws that conflict with federal laws. This prohibition is known as the preemption doctrine. For example, under the preemption doctrine, if a federal statute gives credit card holders certain rights, a state can’t pass a law that takes those rights away. There are also some areas in which the states can’t legislate at all: patents and copyrights, interstate commerce, and bankruptcy. The U.S. Constitution and/or specific acts of Congress have made these and other areas off-limits to the states.
Case Law and Precedent	Another source of law is case law, or published judicial opinions. Case law is important in common-law legal systems such as ours, because it gives judges a source of law to rely on other than constitutions and statutes when making their decisions. Case law includes reported cases that interpret statutes and constitutional provisions. Our legal system is known as a common-law system. Under a common-law system, the law develops as cases are decided, through the use of precedent. Precedent is simply a prior case dealing with a legal issue similar to that of a pending case. In a common-law system, courts use precedent to decide what the law is and to guide their interpretation of the law in new situations. In civil law systems, all laws come from a detailed code, and law is not created or interpreted through case law.

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	Created by Shacondala Heffner almost 5 years ago