Key Concepts in US Law and Jurisprudence
Posted on Mar 11, 2025 in Law & Jurisprudence
Definitions
- Administrative Law: The collection of rules and decisions made by administrative agencies to fill in particular details missing from constitutions and statutes.
- Business Law: The enforceable rules of conduct that govern the actions of buyers and sellers in market exchanges.
- Case Law: The collection of legal interpretations made by judges. They are considered to be law unless otherwise revoked by a statutory law. Also known as common law.
- Precedent: A tool used by judges to make rulings on cases on the basis of key similarities to previous cases.
- Stare Decisis: Latin for “standing by the decision”; a principle stating that rulings made in higher courts are binding precedent for lower courts.
- Private Law: Law that involves suits between private individuals or groups.
- Public Law: Law that involves suits between private individuals or groups and their governments.
- Criminal Law: A classification of law involving the rights and responsibilities an individual has with respect to the public as a whole.
- Cyberlaw: A classification of law regulating business activities that are conducted online.
- Statutes: Rules and regulations put forth by legislatures.
- Statutory Law: The assortment of rules and regulations put forth by legislatures.
- Uniform Law: A law created to account for the variability of laws among states; serves to standardize the otherwise different interstate laws. Also called model law.
- Restatements of the Law: Summaries of common law rules in a particular area of the law. Restatements do not carry the weight of law but can be used to guide interpretations of particular cases.
- Treaty: A binding agreement between two nations or international organizations.
- Constitutional Law: The general limits and powers of a government as interpreted from its written constitution.
- Jurisdiction: The power of a court to hear cases and resolve disputes.
- Trial Courts: A court in which most civil or criminal cases start when they first enter the legal system. The parties present evidence and call witnesses to testify. Trial courts are referred to as courts of common pleas or county courts in state court systems and district courts in the federal system. Also called court of original jurisdiction and court of first instance.
- Appellate Court: A higher court, usually consisting of more than one judge, that reviews the decision and results of a lower court (either a trial court or a lower-level appellate court) when a losing party files for an appeal. Appellate courts do not hold trials but may request additional oral and written arguments from each party; they issue written decisions, which collectively constitute case law or the common law. Also called court of appellate jurisdiction.
Schools of Jurisprudence
- Natural Law: A school of jurisprudence that recognizes the existence of higher law, or law that is morally superior to human laws.
- Legal Positivism: The school of jurisprudence which holds that because society requires authority, a legal and authoritarian hierarchy should exist. When a law is made, therefore, obedience is expected because authority created it.
- Identification with the Vulnerable: The school of jurisprudence of pursuing change on the grounds that some higher law or body of moral principles connects all of us in the human community.
- Historical School: A way of understanding and advancing the evolution of law by recognizing that law is not made but derived from the habits, traditions, and views of specific national leaders, e.g., kings.
- Legal Realism: The school of jurisprudence which dictates that context must be considered as well as law. Context includes factors such as economic conditions and social conditions.
- Sociological Jurisprudence: A theory of applying the law based on concrete problems to ensure that law is an effective method of ensuring that law is a form of social control that harmonizes the conflicting interest of individuals in society.
- Cost-Benefit Analysis: An economic school of jurisprudence in which all costs and benefits of a law are given monetary values. Those laws with the highest ratios of benefits to costs are then preferable to those with lower ratios.
