Law Defined
I once had an attorney tell me about how one of his favorite teachers in law school defined law. He explained that this particular teacher was able to define it in such a way that made it all make sense.
His teacher said law is simple when you understand it is always related to property. When property of any kind is at issue, you will find the law.
Simply Defined?
This was how he simplified and defined law and seeing it through this lens made law school easier for him. Ever since he told me this, the perspective cleared many things up but perplexed me at the same time. And since then I have had the personal goal of defining the law, simply.
Law Is Love
Law is authority. Or rather a system of rules. Or is it a language? It is all of these things depending on what context the word is used in. Law to me is similar to the English word “love.”
Law Is Latin, Que No?
There are so many different types of love yet in English there is only one word to describe these various forms of love. In Spanish, there are different words for love that can denote different meanings such as:
- Amor – Romantic Love
- Querer – Wanting Love
- Adoro – Adoring Love
- Encanta – Enchanting Love
It’s All Greek
The Greek really did a great job categorizing love. Here are the eight different words in Greek for love:
- “Eros” or Erotic Love.
- “Philia” or Affectionate Love
- “Storge” or Familiar Love
- “Ludus” or Playful Love
- “Mania” or Obsessive Love
- “Pragma” or Enduring Love
- “Philautia” or Self Love
- “Agape” or Selfless Love
What Is This Posture I Have To Stare At?
But this blog is not about love. This is about law. A much more complex subject.
A system of rules created by society to control the conduct of its citizens is one definition of law. Guidelines for behavior is another general definition of the word.
However, as a paralegal, you must have a deeper understanding of what the law is. Here is an interesting list of definitions from various sources.
Rules of Civil Conduct
- All the rules of conduct that have been approved by the government and which are in force over a certain territory and which must be obeyed by all persons on that territory (eg. the “laws” of Australia). Violation of these rules could lead to government action such as imprisonment or fine, or private action such as a legal judgement against the offender obtained by the person injured by the action prohibited by law. Synonymous to act or statute although in common usage, “law” refers not only to legislation or statutes but also to the body of unwritten law in those states which recognize common law. —Duhaime’s Law Dictionary
- [Law is] * * * a rule of civil conduct prescribed by the supreme power in a state, commanding what is right, and prohibiting what is wrong. –Blackstone, Commentaries (1847), p.44.
Universal Law
- [B]y ‘particular’ law I mean that which an individual community lays down for itself * * * ; and by ‘universal’ law I mean the law of nature. For there is a natural and universal notion of right and wrong, one which all men instinctively apprehend * * * –Aristotle, Rhetoric 1373b (Cooper trans. 1932), p.73.
Commands of a Political Society
- Law is a command from the sovereign person or body in the political society to a member or members of society. –Austin, Lectures on Jurisprudence (1885), p.215.
Judge’s Decision
- When there is such a degree of probability as to lead to a reasonable assurance that a given conclusion ought to be and will be embodied in a judgement, we speak of that conclusion as the law. –Cardozo, The Growth of the Law (1924), p.33.
- The prophecies of what the courts will do in fact, and nothing more pretentious, are what I mean by the law. —Holmes, The Oath of the Law, 10 Harvard Law Review (1897), p.461.
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Justice
- Reason is the life of the law, nay, the common law itself is nothing else but reason * * *. The law is the perfection of reason. –Coke, First Institute (1826), p.1.
Precedence
- The life of the law has not been logic: it has been experience. –Holmes, The Common Law (1881), p.1.
Social Order
- Law is “not a brooding omnipresence in the sky,” but a flexible instrument of social order, dependent on the political values of the society which it purports to regulate * * *. –Friedmann, Law in a Changing Society (1959), p.xlii.
- The law of the state or any organized body of men is composed of the rules which the courts, that is, the judicial organs of that body, lay down for the determination of legal rights and duties. –Gray, the Nature and Sources of the Law (1921), p.84.
Prudence
- Law is a rule of moral action obliging to that which is right. –Grotius, De Jure Belli ac Pacis (1625), p.1
Conflict Resolution
- This doing of something about disputes, this doing of it reasonably, is the business of law. And the people who have the doing in charge, whether they be judges or sheriffs or clerks or jailers or lawyers, are officials of the law. What these officials do about disputes is, to my mind, the law itself. –Llewellyn, The Bramble Bush (1930), p.3
Favors Dominant Classes
- Law is a system (or order) of social relationships which corresponds to the interests of the dominant class and is safeguarded by the organized force of that class. [T]he state is an organ of class dominance–an organ whereby one class crushes another * * *. Law is a system of norms established by the state to safeguard the existing order of social organization. It is the activity reflected will of the dominant class, sanctifying and perpetuating the economic and political interests of that class. –Yudin & Stuchka, in Soviet Legal Philosophy (Babb trans. 1951), p.20.; p.284.
- Law is the totality (a) of the rules of conduct expressing the will of the dominant class and established in legal order, and (b) of customs and rules of community life sanctioned by state authority their application being guaranteed by the compulsive force of the state in order to guard, secure, and develop social relationships and social orders advantageous and agreeable to the dominant class. –Vyshinsky, The Law of the Soviet State (1948), p.50.
- A social norm is legal if it is neglect or infraction is regularly met, in threat or in fact, by the application of physical force by an individual or group possessing the socially recognized privilege of so acting. –Hoebel, The Law of Primitive Man (1954), p.28.
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About the Author
Valentina Zapata Harris
Mother | Advocate | Blogger
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