Terms beginning with L
1,321 headwords
- LIn citations, the letter stands for law, as in L. Rev. for law review, and in older usage for a lord.
- L-Claim proceedingUnder the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, a hearing attached to a criminal case to establish that…
- L.FThe corrupted Norman French that grew up in England after 1066 and served for centuries as the working language of th…
- L.JLord Justice, a judge of the English Court of Appeal; in citations the letters can also stand for law journal.
- L.JJLords Justices: two or more judges of the English Court of Appeal.
- L.LThe corrupted Latin once used in law and legal documents, including writs, royal charters, and private deeds. It mixe…
- L.LatThe corrupted Latin once used in law and legal documents, including writs, royal charters, and private deeds. It mixe…
- L.SThe place of the seal: the abbreviation marks the spot on a document where the seal goes or would have gone.
- la bombaAn incendiary device made of a plastic bag of fuel inside a paper bag stuffed with tissue and fitted with a fuse. Usi…
- la chambre des esteillesThe Star Chamber.
- labelA logo, title, or other marking put on a manufactured product to inform buyers; also any writing, such as a codicil,…
- labelingUnder the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, any label or other written, printed, or graphic material on a product…
- laborWork of any kind, mental as well as physical, usually meaning work done for wages rather than profit; also workers ta…
- labor agreementAn agreement between an employer and a union governing working conditions, wages, benefits, and grievances.
- labor contractAn agreement between an employer and a union governing working conditions, wages, benefits, and grievances.
- labor disputeA dispute between an employer and its workers about the terms or conditions of employment, or about who is to represe…
- Labor Disputes ActThe federal statute of 1932 that sharply limited the power of federal courts to issue injunctions in labor disputes a…
- labor organizationAn organization formed to bargain with employers on behalf of workers as a body over pay, benefits, hours, and workin…
- Labor Relations BoardThe federal agency created by the National Labor Relations Act, which oversees relations between employers and employ…
- labor unionAn organization formed to bargain with employers on behalf of workers as a body over pay, benefits, hours, and workin…
- labor-management relationsThe whole range of dealings between employers and their employees, whether unionized or not.
- Labor-Management Relations ActThe federal statute of 1947 regulating certain union activities, allowing suits against unions for forbidden acts, ba…
- labor-relations actA statute governing relations between employers and employees. The Labor-Management Relations Act is the main federal…
- laborariisAn old writ against a person who had no other means of support but refused to work through the year.
- laboratory conditionsThe ideal conditions for a union election, in which employees can choose freely without pressure from the employer, t…
- laboring a juryTrying to corrupt or steer a jury toward a particular verdict by means other than evidence and argument in court, as…
- laccaA shortfall in the weight of coin.
- Lacey ActA federal statute, first passed in 1900, letting states enforce their own game laws against animals brought in from o…
- lachesUnreasonable delay in pursuing a right or claim, almost always an equitable one, in a way that prejudices the other s…
- laches, estoppel byThe equitable doctrine under which a court refuses relief to a claimant who has delayed unreasonably in asserting the…
- lack of jurisdictionA court's want of power to act in a particular way or to give a particular remedy, whether because it has no power at…
- lack of prosecutionA party's failure to move the case forward.
- Lackey claimA prisoner's argument that spending many years on death row is itself cruel and unusual punishment.
- lactaA shortfall in the weight of coin.
- ladaA court of justice; also a canal for draining marshy ground, or a watercourse.
- ladeThe mouth of a river.
- laden in bulkOf a vessel, carrying cargo loose in the hold, protected from water by mats and dunnage, rather than packed in contai…
- lading, bill ofA document a carrier issues acknowledging receipt of goods and setting out the terms on which they are carried, which…
- ladyIn Britain, a title belonging to the wife of a peer, by courtesy to the wife of a baronet or knight, and to any daugh…
- lady-courtThe court of a lady of the manor.
- lady's friendFormerly, an officer of the English House of Commons whose duty was to see that a wife was suitably provided for when…
- laenlandA tenancy created by one person lending land to another.
- laesa majestasInjury to majesty: an offense against the sovereign or the state, above all treason.
- laesae majestatisInjury to majesty: an offense against the sovereign or the state, above all treason.
- laesio enormisA sale at less than half the thing's real value. The seller could undo the sale, though the buyer could keep the thin…
- laesio ultra dimidium vel enormisThe injury one party suffers under an onerous contract when the other receives twice the value of what they gave, as…
- laesiwerpA thing surrendered into another's hands or power; a thing given or delivered.
- laetA person of a class standing between servile and free.
- lagaLaw; also the territory in which a particular body of law ran, as with the Danelaw, the Mercian law, and the West Sax…
- laganGoods thrown overboard but tied to a buoy so that they can be found and recovered.
- lageLaw; also the territory in which a particular body of law ran, as with the Danelaw, the Mercian law, and the West Sax…
- lage dayA law day: a day on which a court sits, or on which a court leet is held.
- lagemanA lawful man: someone qualified to serve as a juror or to attend a court as a suitor.
- lagendGoods thrown overboard but tied to a buoy so that they can be found and recovered.
- lagging economic indicatorAn economic measure, such as new-home sales, that moves after the economy as a whole and so confirms a trend rather t…
- lagging indicatorAn index that turns only after the wider economy or market has already changed direction.
- lagh dayA day on which a court sits: a juridical day.
- lagonGoods thrown overboard but tied to a buoy so that they can be found and recovered.
- laguLaw; also the territory in which a particular body of law ran, as with the Danelaw, the Mercian law, and the West Sax…
- lahmanA lawful man: someone qualified to serve as a juror or to attend a court as a suitor.
- laicusA layman: a person not in holy orders.
- Laidlaw vacancyUnder the National Labor Relations Act, a genuine opening in an employer's workforce, whether from expansion, a dismi…
- lairwiteA fine for adultery or fornication paid to the lord of the manor, above all the lord's right to a fine for fornicatio…
- lais gentsLaymen; a jury.
- laissez-faireThe policy of keeping government out of economic and commercial affairs, and the doctrine favoring it.
- laityPeople who are not members of the clergy, taken together.
- lakeA large body of standing water lying in a hollow or basin and fed by drainage from a wide area; also a widened stretc…
- Lamb-Weston ruleIn insurance law, the rule that where two policies both cover a loss and each contains an other-insurance clause, so…
- Lambeth degreeA degree conferred by the Archbishop of Canterbury rather than by a university, under authority given by the Ecclesia…
- lame duckAn officeholder still serving out a term after a successor has been elected.
- lame-duck amendmentThe constitutional amendment ratified in 1933 moving the presidential and vice-presidential inaugurations from 4 Marc…
- lame-duck sessionA legislative session held after an election, in which some members are voting out their final days in office.
- lammas landLand held privately until harvest and then thrown open to common pasture until spring, so called because the common r…
- landAn immovable three-dimensional area consisting of a piece of the earth's surface, the space above and below it, and e…
- land agentIn oil-and-gas law, a person who negotiates with landowners, usually for an oil company, to obtain the mineral rights…
- land bankA bank set up under the Federal Farm Loan Act to lend at low rates on the security of farmland; also a program that t…
- land boundaryThe limit of a landholding, usually marked out by the length of its borders, by compass bearings, or by fixed markers.
- land certificateA document entitling the holder to receive a stated amount of land from the government on following the prescribed st…
- land contractA contract to sell land in which the buyer takes possession and pays by installments, with the deed handed over only…
- land copA sale of land shown by handing over a rod in court as a token of possession: the seller gave the rod to the reeve an…
- land courtA court dealing with land matters. It has sole first-instance jurisdiction over applications to register land titles…
- land damagesUnder the Fifth Amendment, fair payment by the government for land taken under eminent domain, usually its market val…
- land departmentA federal or state office that settles questions of fact about the control and transfer of public land. At the federa…
- land descriptionA formal description of a piece of land, including any part subject to an easement or reservation, detailed enough th…
- land districtA federally created division of a state or territory containing a U.S. land office that manages the disposal of the p…
- land flipA transaction in which property is bought and at once resold, usually to a sham buyer, at a far higher price, so as t…
- land grantA gift of public land to a person, a company, or a lower level of government.
- land improvementSomething added to real property, permanent or not, above all something that raises its value or usefulness or improv…
- land leaseA long lease, usually of 99 years, of bare land. It is typically commercial, and any buildings the tenant puts up nor…
- land managerIn oil-and-gas law, a person who negotiates with landowners, usually for an oil company, to obtain the mineral rights…
- land officeA government office where sales of public land are recorded.
- land patentThe instrument by which the government conveys public land to a private owner.
- land revenueRevenue from lands owned by the Crown in Great Britain. So much has been granted away over the centuries that little…
- land sales contractA contract to sell land in which the buyer takes possession and pays by installments, with the deed handed over only…
- land scripA transferable certificate entitling the holder, usually a person or company engaged in public service, to take up st…
- land taxA tax on the owner of property, above all land, usually reckoned on its value. Local governments commonly use it to f…
- Land Titles and Transfer ActAn 1875 English statute setting up a register of titles to land and providing for transfers to be recorded. It resemb…
- land trustA way of holding land in which the trustee takes both the legal and the equitable title, while the beneficiary keeps…
- land trust certificateAn instrument giving the holder a share in the benefits of owning property while the trustee keeps the legal title.
- land waiterA customs officer responsible for examining, tasting, weighing, measuring, and accounting for goods landed at a port.
- land warfareFighting carried on the ground, as opposed to at sea or in the air.
- land warrantA document entitling the holder to receive a stated amount of land from the government on following the prescribed st…
- land-gavelA tax or rent issuing out of land.
- land-poorOf a person, owning a good deal of unprofitable or mortgaged land but without the money to improve it, keep it up, or…
- land-tenantA person actually in possession of land; also someone who acquires an interest in a judgment debtor's land after the…
- land-use planningThe deliberate, systematic development of land through tools such as zoning and environmental-impact studies.
- land-use regulationAn ordinance or other enactment governing how land may be developed.
- land, law ofThe law in force in a country and binding on everyone in it, whether statutory, administrative, or made by the courts…
- landcheapA customary fine, paid in money or cattle, when land within a manor or borough changed hands.
- landedOf a person, holding an estate in land; of an estate, consisting of land.
- landed estateAn interest in real property, especially suburban or rural land, as opposed to property in a city.
- landed propertyAn interest in real property, above all rural or suburban land, as distinguished from property in a city.
- landed securityA mortgage or other charge affecting land.
- landed servitudeA servitude that does not merely burden one piece of land but belongs to another piece as an advantage attached to it…
- landed-estates courtIn English law, a court set up by statute to sell mortgaged and otherwise burdened land more quickly and easily than…
- landegandmanA customary or inferior tenant of a manor.
- landhlafordFormerly, an owner of land: the lord of the soil.
- landingA place on a river or other navigable water for loading and unloading goods or taking on and setting down passengers;…
- landing lawA law forbidding the possession or sale of fish or game taken unlawfully.
- landlockedSurrounded by land, usually with the implication that there is no way in or out without crossing someone else's prope…
- landlordA person who leases land or buildings to another; at common law, the feudal lord who kept the fee of the land.
- landlord-and-tenant relationshipThe relationship between the lessor and lessee of real estate. It rests on contract, created by a lease for a term of…
- landlord-tenant relationshipThe relationship between the lessor and lessee of real estate. It rests on contract, created by a lease for a term of…
- landlord's lienA lien, given by the common law or by statute, over a tenant's goods on the premises, securing unpaid rent or compens…
- landlord's warrantA landlord's authority to seize a tenant's goods and sell them to satisfy overdue rent.
- landmarkA feature of the land, whether a natural object or a set marker, that fixes a boundary; also a building or site of hi…
- landmark decisionA judicial decision that changes the existing law in a significant way, such as Brown v. Board of Education, holding…
- landreeveAn officer charged with overseeing parts of a farm or estate: looking after timber, fences, gates, buildings, private…
- Landreth ruleThe rule that an instrument is governed by the securities laws if it is called stock and carries the features people…
- Landrum-Griffin ActThe federal statute of 1959, formally the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act, aimed at curbing corruption…
- landsAt common law, property narrower in scope than tenements or hereditaments; under some modern statutes, land including…
- lands, tenements, and hereditamentsReal property. The phrase was traditionally used in wills, deeds, and similar instruments.
- Langdell systemA way of teaching law by having students work from particular cases toward the general principles behind them. Christ…
- langemanA lord of a manor.
- languageAny means of conveying ideas, above all speech, writing, or sign; also the letter and grammatical sense of a document…
- languidusAt common law, a sheriff's return reporting that a defendant taken into custody was too ill to be moved.
- Lanham ActThe federal trademark statute of 1946, which set up a national system of trademark registration and protects the owne…
- lapidationExecution by stoning.
- lappageThe overlap where two owners claim under deeds or grants that cover, in part, the same piece of land.
- lappingAn embezzlement technique in which an employee takes money from one customer's account and covers the gap with a seco…
- lapseThe ending of a right or privilege because it was not exercised in time or because some contingency did or did not ha…
- lapse patentA land patent issued in place of an earlier one for the same land, which lapsed because the first patentee never clai…
- lapse statuteA statute passing a lapsed gift to the heirs of a beneficiary who died before the testator, instead of letting it fal…
- lapsed deviseA gift of land by will that fails because the person making the will outlives the person named to receive it.
- lapsed legacyA gift by will that fails because the beneficiary died before the testator.
- lapsed policyAn insurance policy on which the premiums have gone unpaid. The phrase also covers a policy that by statute stays in…
- larcenableCapable of being stolen.
- larcenistA person who commits larceny.
- larcenousHaving to do with larceny; of a person, thievish or intending theft.
- larcenous intentThe state of mind of someone who knowingly carries off another's goods with no claim of right, meaning either to depr…
- larcenyTaking and carrying off someone else's property without permission, meaning to deprive the owner of it permanently. S…
- larceny by baileeLarceny by a bailee who turns the goods entrusted to them to their own use or to someone else's.
- larceny by extortionLarceny in which the taker gets property by threatening to inflict harm or commit a crime, to accuse someone of an of…
- larceny by trickLarceny in which the taker misleads the rightful possessor by a false statement of fact into handing over possession,…
- larceny from the personLarceny in which goods are taken directly off the person, but without violence or threats and usually without the vic…
- larceny of property lost, mislaid, or delivered by mistakeLarceny in which a person takes control of property they know to be lost, mislaid, or handed over by mistake, and mak…
- larger parcelIn eminent-domain law, the greater tract of which the land taken forms part, entitling the owner to damages both for…
- Larrison ruleThe rule that a defendant may win a new trial on newly discovered evidence that a government witness testified falsel…
- lasciviousOf conduct, tending to excite lust: lewd, indecent, or obscene.
- lascivious cohabitationThe offense of two unmarried people living together as husband and wife and having sexual relations. Where such laws…
- lastA burden; also a measure of weight used for bulky goods.
- last antecedent, rule of theThe rule that qualifying words modify the words immediately before them and not those further off, unless the context…
- last heirThe person, either the lord of the manor or the sovereign, to whom land comes by escheat when there is no lawful heir.
- last illnessThe illness that ends in the person's death.
- last resort, court ofThe highest court in a system, from which no further appeal lies.
- last sicknessThe illness that ends in the person's death.
- last willThe most recent will of a dead person: the document that finally settles how their property passes.
- last will and testamentA person's final will.
- last-clear-chance doctrineIn tort law, the rule that a plaintiff who was also careless may still recover if the defendant had the last real cha…
- last-employer ruleThe rule that liability for an occupational injury or disease falls on the employer who exposed the worker to the har…
- last-in, first-outAn accounting method that assumes the most recently acquired goods are the first sold or used, setting current costs…
- last-injurious-exposure ruleThe rule that liability for an occupational injury or disease falls on the employer who exposed the worker to the har…
- last-link doctrineThe rule that a lawyer need not disclose otherwise unprivileged information if doing so would reveal privileged matte…
- last-opportunity doctrineIn tort law, the rule that a plaintiff who was also careless may still recover if the defendant had the last real cha…
- last-proximate-act testA common-law test for attempt, asking whether the defendant performed the final act needed to commit the offense, suc…
- last-straw doctrineIn employment law, the rule that a dismissal may be justified by a run of poor performance, no single instance of whi…
- last-survivor insuranceLife insurance on two or more people that pays out only when the last of them dies.
- last-treatment ruleThe rule that where a doctor and patient have an ongoing relationship, the limitation period for a malpractice claim…
- lata culpaGross fault or neglect: carelessness going well beyond an ordinary slip.
- lata negligentiaExtreme negligence, consisting in failing to notice what the person plainly should have known.
- latchingA survey of a mine: an underground survey.
- lateComing after the appointed or expected time; also, of a person, recently dead.
- latentHidden or dormant.
- latent ambiguityAn ambiguity not obvious from the words of a document, which emerges only when its terms are applied to the facts.
- latent deedA deed kept in a strongbox or other hiding place, usually for 20 years or more.
- latent defectA flaw in a product that a reasonable inspection would not reveal. A seller or lessor is generally liable if it cause…
- latent equityAn equitable claim or right known only to the parties for and against whom it exists, or one hidden from someone with…
- latent intentThe intention a legislature would have had if some ambiguity, inconsistency, or gap had been pointed out to it at the…
- latent intentionThe intention a legislature would have had if some ambiguity, inconsistency, or gap had been pointed out to it at the…
- lateral departureUnder the federal sentencing guidelines, a sentence that lets a defendant avoid prison through confinement in the com…
- lateral sentencingUnder the federal sentencing guidelines, a sentence letting the defendant avoid prison through community or home conf…
- lateral supportThe right to have one's land held up by the land lying next to it, so that a neighbor's excavation must not cause it…
- laterareTo lie sideways rather than endways, a term once used in describing land.
- latifundiumA large private estate, usually built up out of smaller ones, common in the last centuries of the Roman Republic.
- LatinThe language of the ancient Romans, and long the working language of the civil law, the canon law, and the common law.
- latinariusAn interpreter of Latin.
- latini junianiIn Roman law, a class of freed slaves who gained their liberty but never the full rights of citizenship.
- latitatA writ issued in a personal action after the sheriff returned a bill of Middlesex saying the defendant could not be f…
- latitatioLurking or hiding, above all to avoid trial.
- latorA bearer or messenger; also a maker or giver of laws.
- latrocinationRobbery, plunder, or theft.
- latrociniumFormerly, robbery or theft; the thing stolen; also a lord's right to try and hang thieves.
- latrocinyRobbery, plunder, or theft.
- laudareIn civil law, to name, or to cite as authority; in older usage, to decide a case judicially.
- laudatioIn Roman law, evidence given in court about an accused person's good character and honest life, much like modern char…
- laudatorIn Roman law, a character witness at a criminal trial; in older usage, an arbitrator.
- laudemiumA sum paid to a landowner by someone succeeding to a particular kind of land holding by gift, will, exchange, or sale…
- laudere auctoremTo name one's warrantor: for a buyer sued over title to call on the seller to come in and defend it.
- laudumAn arbitrator's award.
- laugheThe pledge a group of ten freeholders gave the sovereign for one another's good conduct. Saxon in origin, it survived…
- laughing heirA distant relative who inherits under the intestacy rules despite having had no real connection to the deceased.
- launchThe moving of a vessel from land into the water, above all by sliding it down the ways it was built on; also a large…
- launderingThe federal crime of passing illegally obtained money through legitimate people or accounts so that its source cannot…
- laundry listInformally, a run of listed items in a statute or judicial opinion.
- laureateFormerly, an officer of the sovereign's household who wrote odes each year for the sovereign's birthday and the new y…
- lawThe system of rules that orders human activity and relations, backed by the force of an organized society; also the b…
- law and literatureThe study of how literature depicts lawyers and legal institutions, and of what law-related fiction reveals about a c…
- law arbitraryA law resting on nothing in the nature of things but only on the legislature's will, and therefore alterable at will.
- law as literatureThe study of legal texts as works of literature, attending to their rhetoric, narrative, and style.
- law between statesThe body of rules and principles that govern relations between states, drawn from treaties, custom, general principle…
- law clerkA lawyer, usually a recent law graduate, who assists a judge with research and drafting.
- law commissionAn official or semi-official body set up to propose reforms to the law, often charged with reviewing a field with an…
- law courtA court that administers the common law, as opposed to a court of equity.
- law court of appealsAn appellate court that once existed in South Carolina to hear appeals from the courts of law.
- law dayIn older usage, the yearly or half-yearly sitting of one of the early common-law courts, and also the day fixed for a…
- law departmentThe branch of a company, agency, or university that handles its legal affairs.
- law enforcementThe detecting and punishing of breaches of the law, not limited to criminal law. The Freedom of Information Act, for…
- Law Enforcement Assistance AdministrationA federal agency within the Justice Department that administered law-enforcement grants under the Omnibus Crime Contr…
- Law Enforcement Information NetworkA computerized system used in some states to hold records of driving licences, vehicle registrations, and wanted pers…
- law firmAn association of lawyers practicing together, usually sharing clients and profits. Traditionally a partnership, it i…
- Law FrenchThe corrupted Norman French that grew up in England after 1066 and served for centuries as the working language of th…
- law in literatureThe study of how law and legal themes appear in imaginative literature, and what novels and plays reveal about justice.
- Law LatinThe corrupted Latin once used in law and legal documents, including writs, royal charters, and private deeds. It mixe…
- law listA publication listing the names and addresses of practicing lawyers together with other information useful to the pro…
- Law LordA member of the appellate committee of the House of Lords: the Lord Chancellor, the salaried Lords of Appeal in Ordin…
- law martialThe rule of the army in place of civil authority during wartime, imposed for military security or public safety and m…
- law merchantThe system of customary law that grew up in Europe during the Middle Ages and governed the dealings of merchants and…
- law of a general natureLaw that is neither local nor aimed at particular people. A law counts as general if it purports to apply to everyone…
- law of armsThe rules governing the conduct of war, such as the treatment of prisoners; also the law on the right to bear arms, a…
- law of captureIn property law, the rule that wild animals belong to whoever captures them, whatever land they were on before. In wa…
- law of CitationsA decree of the emperor Valentinian in 426 A.D. naming Papinian, Paul, Gaius, Ulpian, and Modestinus as the only juri…
- law of competenceA law setting up an official's powers and defining them, including when that official's pronouncements have the force…
- law of evidenceThe body of rules governing what may be proved at trial, by what means, and with what weight.
- law of marqueA rule of reprisal allowing someone who has been wronged and can get no justice to seize the wrongdoer's goods found…
- law of nationsThe body of rules and principles that govern relations between states, drawn from treaties, custom, general principle…
- law of natureA body of legal and moral principles said to flow from human nature or divine justice rather than from any legislatur…
- law of nature and nationsThe body of rules and principles that govern relations between states, drawn from treaties, custom, general principle…
- law of obligationsThe branch of law dealing with rights good against particular people rather than against the world: one of the three…
- law of personsThe law dealing with people and their different legal statuses, known in Roman law as the jus personarum.
- law of propertyThe branch of law dealing with rights good against the world: one of the three divisions of the civil law.
- law of shippingThe part of maritime law covering the building, fitting out, registering, owning, inspecting, and employing of ships,…
- law of statusThe branch of law dealing with personal rather than proprietary rights, whether good against the world or against par…
- law of the apexIn mining law, the rule that title to a tract of mineral land, with its mining rights, goes to whoever locates the su…
- law of the caseThe rule that a decision made on an earlier appeal in a case binds the court on a later appeal; also the earlier deci…
- law of the circuitThe law as a United States court of appeals has declared it, together with the rule that one panel of that court shou…
- law of the flagThe law of the country whose flag a vessel flies. By sending a ship into a foreign port under her flag, the owner giv…
- law of the landThe law in force in a country and binding on everyone in it, whether statutory, administrative, or made by the courts…
- law of the partnershipThe rule that the partners' own agreement settles how the partnership works.
- law of the placeUnder the Federal Tort Claims Act, the law of the state where the injury happened. The Act waives federal immunity fo…
- law of the seaThe body of international law governing how nations may use and control the sea and its resources.
- law of the stapleThe law administered in the court of the mayor of the staple: in substance the law merchant.
- law of the trialA legal theory or ruling that nobody objects to and that the parties and the court work from throughout the trial.
- law of thingsThe law dealing with things and rights in them, known in Roman law as the jus rerum.
- law practiceA lawyer's professional business, including the relationships with clients and the goodwill that goes with them.
- law questionA question about what the law is or how it applies, which the judge rather than the jury decides.
- law reformThe work of streamlining, modernizing, or otherwise improving the law, whether across a legal system or in one branch…
- law reportA published volume, or series of volumes, containing the decisions of a court.
- law reporterA published series of court decisions; also the official who prepares and publishes them.
- law reviewA journal of scholarly articles and commentary on legal subjects, written by professors, judges, students, and practi…
- law SaliqueAn early medieval Frankish code originating with the Salian Franks, dealing with property and family matters but chie…
- law schoolAn institution for formal legal education. Graduates of the standard course, usually three years, receive a Juris Doc…
- Law School Admissions TestA standardized examination meant to gauge the likelihood of success in law school, whose results most American law sc…
- Law SocietyThe professional body in England, chartered in 1845, that governs the education, practice, and conduct of solicitors.…
- Law Society of ScotlandThe professional body created by statute in 1949 that governs the admission, conduct, and practice of solicitors in S…
- law spiritualThe body of law drawn largely from canon and civil law and administered by the church courts; also the law governing…
- law writerA person who writes on legal subjects, usually for a professional rather than a popular readership.
- law-enforcement officerA person whose duty is to enforce the laws and keep the peace.
- law-enforcement systemThe institutions an accused person passes through from accusation to the end of any punishment. It has three parts: l…
- law-handThe elaborate old style of handwriting once used by scribes in preparing legal documents.
- law-talkThe jargon lawyers use, above all in legal documents; also talk heavily laden with lawyers' concerns and references.
- law-worthyEntitled to the benefit and protection of the law.
- lawbookA book about the law, above all a primary text such as a statute book or a volume of reported cases.
- lawbreakerA person who breaks the law.
- lawburrowsIn Scots law, security given to guarantee a party's peaceable behavior.
- lawfulNot contrary to law; permitted by law.
- lawful admissionIn immigration law, lawful entry into the country, including under a valid immigrant visa. It is one of the requireme…
- lawful ageThe age at which a person acquires full legal capacity, generally 18.
- lawful arrestTaking someone into legal custody either under a valid warrant or on probable cause that they have committed a crime.
- lawful authoritiesThose, such as the police, entitled to exercise public power, to require obedience to their lawful commands, and to a…
- lawful causeA reason the law accepts as sufficient to justify an act or excuse a failure to act.
- lawful conditionA condition that can be met without breaking the law.
- lawful damagesDamages fixed by law and worked out in a court of law.
- lawful dependentSomeone entitled by law to receive support or benefits from another, whether from public funds such as social securit…
- lawful entryEntry onto land by someone not in possession, under a claim or appearance of right and without force or fraud; also,…
- lawful fenceA barrier strong and solid enough to keep animals from getting out and to keep trespassers off.
- lawful goodsProperty that may lawfully be held, sold, or exported: goods that are not contraband.
- lawful heirThe person entitled under the law of intestacy to take a dead person's property.
- lawful issueDescendants, including those further removed than children. At common law the phrase covered only the children of a l…
- lawful manA man of full legal standing: someone qualified to serve on a jury and to sue and be sued.
- lawful moneyMoney that is legal tender for paying debts.
- lawful representativeA person entitled to stand in another's place in law: an heir, an executor or administrator, or any other legal repre…
- lawgiverA legislator, above all one who lays down a whole code of laws; also, more loosely, a judge with power to interpret t…
- lawmakerA person who makes law in a jurisdiction: a member of a legislative body.
- lawmakingThe process by which a branch of government set up for the purpose enacts written law through a formal procedure.
- lawnoteA short piece of scholarly writing in a law review, usually written by a student on a recent case or a narrow legal q…
- Laws of AmalfiAn early medieval maritime code compiled at Amalfi, long used as the law of the sea throughout the Mediterranean.
- Laws of OléronThe oldest surviving collection of modern maritime law, thought to date from 12th-century Oléron, an island off the F…
- laws of the several statesThe statutes and court decisions of a state on questions of general law.
- laws of warThe body of rules that nations observe in the conduct of war, covering such matters as the position of neutrals and b…
- laws of WisbyA code of maritime customs and decisions adopted on the Baltic island of Gotland, where Wisby was the main port. It i…
- lawsuitAny proceeding brought by one party against another in a court of law.
- lawyerA person licensed to practice law.
- lawyer-client privilegeThe client's right to refuse to disclose, and to stop anyone else disclosing, confidential communications between cli…
- lawyer-witness ruleThe rule that a lawyer likely to be called as a witness on a contested fact may not also act as an advocate in the ca…
- lawyerdomThe world of lawyers: the legal profession taken as a whole.
- lawyeringThe practice of law: what lawyers actually do in advising clients and conducting cases.
- layNot clerical; also not expert, above all in law or medicine.
- lay corporationA corporation made up of lay people rather than clergy, existing for a business or charitable purpose.
- lay damagesTo allege damages, above all in the complaint.
- lay dayA day allowed for loading or unloading cargo without any penalty falling on those who chartered the vessel.
- lay feeAn estate in land held by ordinary feudal tenure, such as socage, rather than by church tenure such as frankalmoin.
- lay investitureThe ceremony of putting a bishop in possession of the lands, revenues, and other worldly property of the diocese.
- lay judgeA judge who is not a lawyer.
- lay opinion testimonyEvidence of opinion given by a witness who is not an expert. In federal court such opinion is admissible only where i…
- lay systemA system in which a fishing vessel's catch is sold at auction and the proceeds go first to whoever supplied the vesse…
- lay tenureAny tenure not held by religious service, whether base or freehold.
- lay witnessA witness who is not an expert, and who may therefore give an opinion only where it rests on first-hand knowledge and…
- layawayAn arrangement in which a retailer sets goods aside and agrees to sell them to a customer at an agreed price later. T…
- laying a foundationIn the law of evidence, putting in the preliminary facts needed to make later evidence relevant or admissible, as by…
- laying of the venueThe statement in a complaint naming the county or district where the plaintiff says the case should be tried.
- laymanA person who is not a member of the clergy; also someone outside a profession or without expert knowledge of a subject.
- layoffThe ending of employment at the employer's instigation, above all the dismissal of a large number of workers at once,…
- layoff betA bet a bookmaker places to guard against heavy losses or to even up the total staked on each side.
- layoff bettorA bookmaker who takes layoff bets from other bookmakers.
- laypersonA person who is not a member of the clergy; also someone outside a profession or without expert knowledge of a subject.
- laytimeThe time allowed for unloading a chartered vessel. If unloading takes longer, the owner is entitled to compensation f…
- LBOLeveraged buyout: the purchase of a public company's shares by its managers or by outside investors, paid for largely…
- LCLetter of credit: an instrument under which a bank, at a customer's request, promises to honor a demand for payment b…
- le mort saisit le vif doctrineThe rule that there must be no gap in the possession of a freehold, so that legal title vests in the heirs the instan…
- le royThe king.
- le roy le veutThe king wills it: the form of words by which the sovereign assented to a public bill passed by Parliament. For a que…
- le roy remercie ses loyaux sujetsThe king thanks his loyal subjects, accepts their benevolence, and so wills it: the form of royal assent to a bill gr…
- le roy s'aviseraThe king will think it over: the form in which royal assent to a bill was refused. It has not been used since 1708.
- LEAAA federal agency within the Justice Department that administered law-enforcement grants under the Omnibus Crime Contr…
- leachingThe process by which moving liquid dissolves and carries off the soluble parts of a material. Under the federal clean…
- lead counselThe senior of two or more lawyers retained on the same side; the one who runs the case, especially in class actions o…
- lead-lag studyA study used to fix how much working capital a utility must hold in its rate base, by comparing how long the company…
- leading caseA decision that first settled an important rule or principle and has been consistently followed since, such as Mirand…
- leading counselThe senior lawyer where two or more are retained: the one who manages the case, above all in class actions or multidi…
- leading economic indicatorAn economic measure, such as interest rates, that tends to move ahead of the economy and so points to where it is hea…
- leading indicatorA measurable index that turns before the wider market does, and so serves as a signal of what is coming.
- leading of a useIn a deed, the naming, before a fine of land is levied, of the person for whose use the fine will enure. A deed made…
- leading questionA question that puts the desired answer into the witness's mouth, above all one that can be answered simply yes or no.
- leading-object ruleIn contract law, the rule that where a promise to answer for another's debt is made mainly for the promisor's own ben…
- leads doctrineIn a tax-evasion case, the rule that the government must run down every lead the taxpayer offers that is reasonably a…
- leagueAn agreement between nations, groups, or individuals to pursue common interests or defend one another, and the allian…
- League of NationsThe organization of nations founded in 1919 to promote international cooperation and peace. President Wilson champion…
- leakageThe loss of liquid escaping from its container, and the customs allowance an importer may claim for it. In intellectu…
- lealLoyal or faithful.
- leanTo incline toward one view or preference. A court is sometimes said to lean against a construction it is reluctant to…
- leap yearA year of 366 days, with an extra day added in February to keep the calendar in step with the solar year.
- leapfrog developmentDevelopment that jumps past undeveloped land scheduled for building later, so that public services must be stretched…
- learnedHaving deep learning. Lawyers use the word of one another, as in learned colleague or learned in the law.
- learned intermediaryA professional standing between a manufacturer and the end user, such as a prescribing doctor, whom the manufacturer…
- learned-intermediary doctrineThe rule that a prescription-drug maker discharges its duty to warn by telling the prescribing doctor of the drug's d…
- learned-treatise ruleAn exception to the hearsay rule under which a published text may be shown to be authoritative, either by an expert's…
- learningLegal doctrine, in older usage; also the acquiring of knowledge.
- leaseA contract by which someone entitled to possess land gives another the right to use and occupy it, usually for rent,…
- lease agreementThe written document setting out a lease and the covenants that go with it.
- lease and releaseA way of transferring seisin without livery: the owner leased the land for a term of years, to take effect when the t…
- lease contractThe written document setting out a lease and the covenants that go with it.
- lease for yearsA tenancy whose length is fixed from the moment it is created, whether in years, weeks, or days.
- lease insuranceAn agreement to compensate a tenant for losing a favorable lease when the property is damaged by a peril the policy c…
- lease-lendAn exchange between friendly powers, above all the arrangement of 1941 under which the United States supplied Britain…
- lease-purchase agreementA rent-to-own arrangement under which the buyer takes the goods on the first payment and owns them outright on the la…
- leasebackA sale of property on the understanding, or with an express option, that the seller may lease it back from the buyer…
- leaseholdA tenant's possessory estate in land, of which there are four kinds: the tenancy for years, the periodic tenancy, the…
- leasehold estateA tenant's estate in land or premises, of which there are four kinds: the tenancy for years, the periodic tenancy, th…
- leasehold improvementsImprovements to leased property, such as a parking lot or driveway, made by or for the tenant. The phrase matters in…
- leasehold interestA tenant's interest under a lease, above all for eminent-domain purposes, measured by the gap between the rent still…
- leasehold mortgageA mortgage of a tenant's leasehold interest rather than of the freehold, giving the lender security over the remainin…
- leasehold mortgage bondA bond secured by a mortgage of the issuer's leasehold interest.
- leasehold valueWhat a leasehold interest is worth, a term used above all where a long lease reserves rent below the current market r…
- leasehold-mortgage bondA bond a tenant issues, secured on their interest under the lease.
- least-intrusive-means doctrineThe rule requiring the government to exhaust every other line of investigation before compelling sensitive testimony,…
- least-intrusive-remedy doctrineThe rule that a remedy should give the injured party proper relief without punishing the other side or the legal syst…
- least-restrictive educational environmentUnder the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, the school setting that educates a disabled child alongside ch…
- least-restrictive environmentUnder the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, the school setting that educates a disabled child alongside ch…
- least-restrictive-means testThe rule that a law or regulation, even one serving a legitimate purpose, must be framed so as to leave civil liberti…
- leauteLegality: the standing of a man who is lawful and of full legal capacity.
- leaveTo give by will; also to depart, above all with no intention of returning.
- leave and licenseIn an action for trespass to land, the defense that the plaintiff consented to the defendant's being there.
- leave no issueTo die leaving no surviving child or descendant. A deceased child's spouse does not count as issue.
- leave of absenceA worker's temporary absence from a job with the intention of returning. Pay and seniority are normally unaffected.
- leave of courtA court's permission to depart from the ordinary procedure.
- LECIn telecommunications law, a company that provides telephone service, usually locally, through a local exchange network.
- leccatorA debauched person.
- lecherwiteA fine for adultery or fornication paid to the lord of the manor, above all the lord's right to a fine for fornicatio…
- lecture methodA style of legal teaching that lays out the doctrine plainly, with occasional questions along the way. It prevails in…
- ledgerThe book, or set of books, in which a business records its transactions as debits and credits. In older usage the wor…
- ledoThe rising water of the sea: the neap tide.
- leetA local criminal court once held by the lord of a manor. The last of them were abolished in England in 1977.
- left-handed marriageA marriage between a man of higher rank and a woman of lower, on terms that neither she nor her children share his ti…
- legabilisProperty that may be given by will; as an adjective, bequeathable.
- legacyA gift by will, above all of personal property and often of money.
- legacy dutyA tax on a legacy, often charged at a higher rate the more distant the legatee's relationship to the testator. It was…
- legacy taxA tax on the privilege of inheriting property by will or by succession.
- legalHaving to do with law, or falling within the province of law; also established, required, or permitted by law, and, i…
- legal ageThe age, usually fixed by statute at 18, at which a person may make a contract, execute a will, sue in their own name…
- legal aidFree or low-cost legal services for people who cannot afford to pay, usually provided through a body set up for the p…
- legal analystA person who assists a lawyer with work related to the practice of law but who is not admitted to practice.
- legal assetAn asset of a deceased person that the law makes available to meet creditors' claims or legacies.
- legal briefA written statement of a party's legal position in litigation, above all on appeal, setting out the arguments of law…
- legal capitalThe part of a company's funds that may not be paid out to shareholders, usually the total par value of the shares it…
- legal causeA cause direct enough to give rise to liability; one that produces an event and without which the event would not hav…
- legal centralismThe theory that the state's legal institutions sit at the center of legal life and control the lesser normative syste…
- legal citologyThe study of citation patterns, above all in footnotes, and what they do to legal scholarship.
- Legal CodeA systematic collection of a jurisdiction's laws, arranged by subject.
- legal conclusionA statement asserting a legal duty or result without setting out the facts that would create or support it.
- legal considerationConsideration the law recognizes as sufficient: something that confers a measurable benefit on one party or imposes a…
- legal crueltyCruelty serious enough to justify a divorce, meaning conduct by one spouse that endangers the other's life, person, o…
- legal custodyThe care and control of a person or thing for inspection, preservation, or safekeeping.
- legal customA custom that binds as a rule of law in its own right, whether or not those subject to it have agreed to it.
- legal deathIn older usage, the loss of rights such as voting, contracting, inheriting, and suing, suffered by someone outlawed o…
- legal debtA debt that can be recovered in a court of law.
- legal defenseA complete and sufficient defense in a court of law.
- legal demandA demand made lawfully by someone with authority to make it.
- legal dependentSomeone who is dependent within the meaning of the law, drawing their main support from another and usually able to i…
- legal descriptionA formal description of a piece of land, including any part subject to an easement or reservation, detailed enough th…
- legal discretionA judge's power to decide what is fair in the circumstances, guided by the rules and principles of law: the power to…
- legal distributeeSomeone the law entitles to take property under a will.
- legal dutyA duty arising from a contract or imposed by law, the breach of which is a legal wrong.
- legal entityA body other than a human being that the law treats as able to act, to sue and be sued, and to decide through agents.…
- legal estateAn interest enforced at law rather than in equity.
- legal estoppelAn estoppel recognized at law, such as one arising from a recital or statement in a deed or official record, which ba…
- legal ethicsThe standards of conduct required of lawyers, covering the duties they owe one another, their clients, and the courts…
- legal evidenceAll admissible evidence, oral and documentary, of a kind that reasonably and substantially proves the point rather th…
- legal excuseA reason that justifies an act or omission, or relieves a person of a duty. In criminal law it names a defense that s…
- legal factA fact that sets a particular legal consequence in motion.
- legal fatherThe man the law treats as a child's father. A man is the legal father if he was married to the child's natural mother…
- legal fenceA barrier strong and solid enough to keep animals from getting out and to keep trespassers off.
- legal fictionAn assumption that something is so even though it may not be, adopted in legal reasoning to make a rule work as it sh…
- legal forceForce that goes no further than is needed and fits the job of protecting oneself or one's property. Using force withi…
- legal formalismThe theory that law is a body of rules and principles standing apart from other political and social institutions. Ch…
- legal formalistA person who holds that law is a self-contained body of rules and principles, to be applied by reasoning from them ra…
- legal fraudDeception or misstatement that harms someone even though the person who made it did not mean to mislead.
- legal heirThe person entitled under the law of intestacy to take a dead person's property.
- legal holidayA day set by law as free from court proceedings and the issuing of process. Which days count varies from state to state.
- legal impossibilityImpossibility because what the defendant meant to do is not in fact a crime, as where someone hunts believing wrongly…
- legal inconsistencyA verdict finding the same element both present and absent, as where a defendant is acquitted of one offense and conv…
- legal injuryThe violation of a legal right, whether or not any actual loss follows.
- legal innocenceThe absence of a legal or procedural basis for the sentence a defendant received. On a habeas petition or other attac…
- legal insanityA mental disorder severe enough to deprive a person of legal capacity and to excuse them from criminal or civil respo…
- legal interestAn interest the law recognizes, such as legal title.
- legal intromissionAn authorized handling of another's funds or affairs, such as a creditor's enforcement of a debt.
- legal investmentsThe investments that institutions and fiduciaries may lawfully make under state statutes, usually confined to high-qu…
- legal issueA legal question, usually one the case turns on, that the court must decide.
- legal jeopardyThe risk of conviction and punishment a defendant faces at trial. It attaches when the jury is sworn in, or, in a tri…
- legal liabilityBeing legally answerable to another or to society, whether through a civil remedy or a criminal penalty; also a finan…
- legal life estateAn estate lasting only as long as a specified person lives, usually the holder. Most are created by a grant in terms…
- legal life tenantA person entitled to the beneficial enjoyment of land until death: the holder of a life estate.
- legal listThe list of investments that institutions and fiduciaries, such as banks and insurance companies, may lawfully make u…
- legal maliceMalice inferred from a person's conduct rather than proved directly.
- legal malpracticeA lawyer's failure to bring to the work the skill, care, and diligence that a reasonably competent lawyer would use i…
- legal manA man of full legal standing: someone qualified to serve on a jury and to sue and be sued.
- legal maximA short traditional statement of a legal principle, such as that no one may profit from their own wrong.
- legal memoryThe period the law looks back over in recognizing a right or custom. In English law it runs from 1189, the start of R…
- legal mindThe trained intellect and habits of thought of a lawyer, often spoken of as though it were a person in its own right.
- legal monopolyThe exclusive right a government grants a business to supply utility services, in return for which the government reg…
- legal moralismThe theory that a government may forbid conduct simply because it is considered immoral.
- legal mortgageA mortgage that passes legal title to the lender as security, leaving the borrower an equity of redemption, as oppose…
- legal nameA person's full name as the law recognizes it, made up of a given name and a family name.
- legal negligenceNegligence established as a matter of law, so that whether the duty was broken is not left to the jury. It usually ar…
- legal newspaperA newspaper carrying matter of legal interest: case summaries, legal advertisements, changes in legislation or regula…
- legal noticeNotice that the law or an agreement requires, or that the law treats a person as having because of some fact, such as…
- legal obligationA duty to do or refrain from doing something, whether imposed by law or assumed by agreement; also a formal binding p…
- legal officerThe officer responsible for military justice within a command, and the commanding officer's adviser on questions of m…
- legal opinionA written statement in which a lawyer gives their understanding of how the law applies to assumed facts. Private lawy…
- legal orderTraditionally, the body of rules governing a society together with the officials who enforce them; in modern use it a…
- legal ownerThe person the law recognizes as owner, above all one who holds the legal title for another's benefit.
- legal paternalismThe theory that a government is justified in overriding people's choices for their own good.
- legal personAn entity such as a company that the law creates and endows with rights and duties of its own, so that for the purpos…
- legal personalityThe standing of someone the law treats as a person: the device by which the law regards a human being or an artificia…
- legal philosophyThe scholarly study of the fundamental elements of a legal system.
- legal portionThe share of a testator's movable property that the children, and sometimes other heirs, are entitled to whatever the…
- legal positivismThe theory that legal rules are valid because a political authority has enacted them or a society accepts them as bin…
- legal positivistA person who holds that law is valid because it has been laid down by an authority a society accepts, rather than bec…
- legal possessorA person entitled in law to possess property, such as a buyer under a conditional sale, as opposed to the legal owner…
- legal practiceThe professional work of a licensed lawyer: conducting cases in court, preparing the documents for transactions from…
- legal practitionerA lawyer.
- legal prejudiceA state of affairs which, if a party shows it, will usually defeat the other side's application, above all one shown…
- legal presumptionAn assumption a court must make once certain facts are established, unless contrary evidence is produced.
- legal proceedingAny proceeding the law authorizes, brought in a court or tribunal to obtain a right or enforce a remedy.
- legal processThe proceedings in an action or prosecution; also a summons or writ, above all one requiring a person to appear or re…
- legal questionA question about what the law is or how it applies, which the judge rather than the jury decides.
- legal rateThe interest rate the law supplies where the contract fixes none; also the highest rate a statute allows to be charge…
- legal realismThe theory that law rests not on formal rules but on what judges actually decide, and that those decisions should be…
- legal realistA person who holds that law rests on what judges actually decide rather than on formal rules, and that decisions shou…
- legal regimeA set of rules, policies, and accepted norms covering a legal question, which makes it easier to settle that question…
- legal relationThe connection the law recognizes between one person or entity and another.
- legal remedyA remedy available in a court of law, as distinguished from one available only in equity. Since law and equity merged…
- legal representativeA person who manages another's legal affairs because of that person's incapacity or death, such as the executor of an…
- legal rescissionRescission that the law itself effects or allows, as where a party rightfully treats the contract as at an end on the…
- legal researchFinding and marshaling the authorities bearing on a legal question; also the field of study concerned with doing so e…
- legal reserveThe minimum liquid assets a bank or insurer must hold by law to meet the demands of depositors or claimants.
- legal residenceThe place the law treats as a person's residence for a particular purpose, such as voting, taxation, or jurisdiction.…
- legal rightA right the law creates or recognizes; also a right historically recognized by the common-law courts as opposed to eq…
- legal rulingA court's decision on a point of law or on the case as a whole.
- legal scienceThe branch of social science dealing with the institutions and principles that societies develop for defining people'…
- legal secretaryAn employee in a law office who types legal documents and correspondence, keeps records and files, and otherwise supp…
- legal seisinThe right to immediate possession of a freehold estate, as where an heir has inherited land but not yet entered on it.
- legal separationAn arrangement under which a married couple live apart while remaining married, whether by agreement or by court decr…
- Legal Services CorporationThe corporation created by the Legal Services Corporation Act of 1974 to fund legal help for people who cannot afford…
- legal servitudeA servitude arising from a limitation the law itself places on how property may be used.
- legal signatureA person's name or mark, written by that person or at their direction.
- legal subdivisionThe officially approved division of a tract of land into smaller parcels by recognized methods of surveying and platt…
- legal subrogationSubrogation arising by operation of law or by implication in equity, to prevent fraud or injustice.
- legal successionSuccession as the law lays it down, usually in favor of the dead person's nearest relatives.
- legal tenderThe money, notes and coins, that a country's law makes good for paying debts and buying goods.
- legal theoryThe legal principle a party proceeds on, and on which its claims or defenses rest.
- legal titleA title that shows apparent ownership without necessarily carrying full ownership or the beneficial interest.
- legal usufructA usufruct arising by operation of law, such as a surviving spouse's right in property the dead spouse owned.
- legal voterA person with the qualifications the law requires for voting.
- legal willfulnessDeliberately doing what the law forbids, or deliberately failing to do what it requires, knowing the duty and choosin…
- legal wrongAn act the law forbids: a breach of a rule of law.
- legal-advice exceptionThe rule that a lawyer may withhold a client's identity and fee information as privileged where disclosure would be l…
- legal-certainty testA test for whether the amount required for federal jurisdiction is met. The sum claimed in the complaint governs unle…
- legal-elements testA way of deciding whether one crime is a lesser included offense of another, by asking whether committing the greater…
- legal-injury ruleThe rule that the limitation period on a claim does not start until the claimant has suffered some legally actionable…
- legal-personal representativeUsed by a testator of personal property, an executor or administrator; used of real property, the person to whom the…
- legales hominesLawful men: those of full legal standing, qualified to serve on juries and to sue and be sued.
- legaleseThe jargon lawyers use, above all in legal documents.
- legalis homoA man of full legal standing: someone qualified to serve on a jury and to sue and be sued.
- legalismFormalism pushed nearly to the point of meaninglessness: a habit of exalting rules and legal form in any field of act…
- legalistA person who looks at things from a strictly legal or formal standpoint, above all one who insists on the letter of t…
- legalisticExcessively attached to the letter of the law or to formal rules, at the expense of their purpose.
- legalizeTo make something lawful, or to authorize it by legal sanction.
- legalized nuisanceA nuisance that legislative or official action has sanctioned, and which therefore gives rise to no liability, such a…
- legallyIn a lawful way; as the law requires.
- legally determinedOf a claim or issue, settled by legal process.
- legally incapacitated personSomeone other than a minor who is impaired, permanently or for the time being, by mental illness or deficiency, physi…
- legally inconsistent verdictA verdict finding the same element both present and absent, as where a defendant is acquitted of one offense and conv…
- legally liableAnswerable in law; also, of a person, exposed to a fine or penalty.
- legally sufficient considerationConsideration that the law regards as enough to support a contract.
- legantineHaving to do with a papal legate.
- legareTo give property by will.
- legatariusIn Roman law, the person to whom property is left by will; in older usage the word also meant a legate or envoy.
- legataryA person named in a will to take personal property, or who has received a legacy; loosely, someone given a devise of…
- legateIn Roman law, an official sent on a special mission for the emperor, such as helping with a judicial duty or a census…
- legate a latereA papal legate of the highest rank, sent from the Pope's own side with wide discretionary powers, usually a cardinal.
- legate missusA legate specially sent by the Pope on a particular mission, ranking below a legate a latere.
- legate natusA legate who holds the office by virtue of the see he occupies, rather than by any special appointment.
- legateeA person named in a will to take personal property, or who has received a legacy; loosely, someone given a devise of…
- legatineHaving to do with a papal legate.
- legatine constitutionA body of church law enacted at English national synods in 1220 and 1268, held under papal legates during the reign o…
- legatine courtA court held by a papal legate, exercising church jurisdiction.
- legationThe sending of a diplomat to another country, and the mission itself; also the body of diplomats headed by an envoy o…
- legatoryThe third of a freeman's estate that he was free to dispose of by will, the other two thirds being reserved for his w…
- legatumIn Roman law, a legacy: a gift left by a dead person and payable out of the estate by the heir. In later usage it mea…
- legatum optionisA legacy of one item chosen by the beneficiary from several in the estate. Originally, if the beneficiary died after…
- legatusA legate: an official sent as a representative, whether by an emperor or by the Pope.
- legenitaA fine for seducing another man's wife.
- legerIn older usage, a resident ambassador or agent.
- legerwiteA fine for adultery or fornication paid to the lord of the manor, above all the lord's right to a fine for fornicatio…
- legesLaws: the plural of lex.
- leges barbarorumThe laws of the barbarians: the early Germanic codes, such as the Salic law, set down as the tribes settled within th…
- leges HenriciA book written anonymously between 1114 and 1118 setting out Anglo-Saxon and Norman law. It gives a valuable view of…
- legislateTo make or enact laws; also to bring something into or out of existence by making laws.
- legislationThe process by which a branch of government set up for the purpose enacts written law through a formal procedure; als…
- legislativeHaving to do with lawmaking or with the power to make laws.
- legislative apportionmentThe allocating of seats in a legislature among districts or areas, normally according to population.
- legislative branchThe branch of government responsible for enacting laws.
- legislative committeeA group of legislators appointed to help the legislature get through its business, especially by examining proposed l…
- legislative councilA state body that studies legislative problems and plans strategy between sessions. In some countries the phrase name…
- legislative counselA person or office charged with helping legislators do their work, by research, drafting bills, and the like.
- legislative courtA court created by statute rather than one provided for by a constitution.
- legislative districtA geographical division of a state for the purpose of electing members of the legislature.
- legislative districtingThe dividing of a state into territorial districts to be represented in the state or federal legislature.
- legislative divorceThe ending of a particular marriage by an act of the legislature rather than by a court. Such divorces once existed i…
- legislative factA fact that shows why a law makes sense and helps a court or agency work out what the law means and how it applies. S…
- legislative functionThe duty of settling legislative policy and of shaping the rights and duties that will apply in future.
- legislative historyThe background and events leading up to a statute's enactment, including hearings, committee reports, and floor debat…
- legislative immunityA legislator's freedom from civil liability for acts done in carrying out legislative duties.
- legislative intentWhat the legislature meant to achieve when it passed a statute.
- legislative investigationA formal inquiry a legislature conducts as part of its lawmaking work. It has many of a court's powers to support the…
- legislative jurisdictionA legislature's general authority to make laws and to do everything that goes with it, such as holding hearings.
- legislative lawThe body of law derived from statutes rather than from constitutions or judicial decisions.
- legislative officerA member of a federal, state, or municipal legislature, or any official whose duties chiefly concern the making of la…
- legislative powerThe power to make laws and change them at will: a legislature's exclusive authority to enact, amend, and repeal. Unde…
- legislative privilegeIn defamation law, the protection given to anything a member says in a legislature and to any paper published as part…
- legislative ruleA rule an agency makes under delegated lawmaking authority. Such a rule has the force of law.
- legislative vetoA device by which Congress could block action taken by the executive or an agency under authority Congress had delega…
- legislative-equivalency doctrineThe rule that a law should be amended or repealed only by the same procedure used to enact it.
- legislatorA person who makes law in a jurisdiction: a member of a legislative body.
- legislatureThe branch of government responsible for making statutory law. The federal government and most states have two chambe…
- legisperitusA lawyer or advocate: someone skilled in the law.
- legisprudenceThe systematic study of statutes in the light of broader ideas about what law is and what it is for.
- legistA person learned or skilled in the law.
- legitimacyLawfulness; also the standing of a person born within a lawful marriage, or given that standing by their parents' lat…
- legitimateComplying with the law; also born to legally married parents, or simply genuine.
- legitimate childAt common law, a child conceived or born in marriage. Today the term also covers a child made legitimate by the paren…
- legitimate portionThe share of a testator's movable property that the children, and sometimes other heirs, are entitled to whatever the…
- legitimationMaking something lawful; also the formal declaring of a person to be legitimate. In older usage the word meant proof…
- legitimeThe share of a testator's movable property that the children, and sometimes other heirs, are entitled to whatever the…
- legitimi heredesIn Roman law, the heirs on intestacy as fixed by the Twelve Tables, which could include relatives on the father's side.
- legitimusLegitimate; lawful.
- legoI bequeath: a common word of gift in a Roman will.
- lego-literaryHaving to do with both law and literature.
- legocentrismThe theory that the state's legal institutions sit at the center of legal life and control the lesser normative syste…
- legruitaA fine for seducing another man's wife.
- leguleianA pettifogging lawyer: one who fusses over trifling points.
- LEINA computerized system used in some states to hold records of driving licences, vehicle registrations, and wanted pers…
- lemon lawA statute protecting the buyer of a substandard car, usually by making the maker or dealer replace it or refund the p…
- lendTo let another have the use of something for a time, sometimes for payment, on condition that the thing itself or its…
- lend-leaseAn exchange between friendly powers, above all the arrangement of 1941 under which the United States supplied Britain…
- lenderA person or institution that lends, above all one that lends money.
- lenientTolerant, mild, or merciful.
- lenient testThe rule that the attorney-client privilege in a document is waived only by a knowing or deliberate disclosure, and n…
- lenityMercy or clemency: the quality of being lenient.
- lenity ruleThe rule that where a criminal statute is ambiguous about which of several punishments applies, the court should read…
- leodesA vassal; also the service a vassal owed, and the compensation payable by someone who killed or seriously injured a v…
- leonina societasA partnership in which one partner takes all the profit and bears none of the loss. Roman law refused to recognize it…
- leonine contractA standard-form contract drawn up by one party and put to the other, usually a consumer in a weaker position, on a ta…
- leproso amovendoA writ to remove a person with leprosy who had been attending public gatherings such as church services or meetings.
- lesionAn injury or wound. In civil law the word also means the loss a party suffers when the other fails to perform, or whe…
- less developed countryIn international law, a country that has not reached the economic or political development of the main industrial pow…
- lesseeA person holding a possessory interest in property under a lease: a tenant.
- lessee in the ordinary course of businessA person who leases goods in good faith, without knowing that the lease breaches someone else's ownership, security i…
- lessee's interestThe value of a lease to the tenant: the market rental value of the property less the rent the lease actually requires.
- lesser included offenseA crime made up of some but not all of the elements of a more serious crime, and necessarily committed in the course…
- lessorA person who lets real or personal property under a lease: a landlord.
- lessor of the plaintiffThe real party in interest in an old action of ejectment. At common law such an action was in theory only for the une…
- lessor's interestThe present value of the rent still to come under a lease, together with the present value of the property once the l…
- letAn impediment or obstruction.
- lethal injectionThe injection of a deadly substance into a prisoner to carry out a death sentence.
- lethal weaponAny instrument capable of causing death or serious bodily harm in the way it is used or intended to be used.
- letterA written communication, usually sealed and delivered, above all an official one; also a written instrument granting…
- letter contractIn federal contracting, a written contract containing enough terms to let the contractor start work while the full co…
- letter missiveIn older English usage, a letter from the sovereign to a cathedral's dean and chapter naming the person the Crown wis…
- letter of adviceA notice that the drawer has sent a draft to the drawee.
- letter of attorneyAn instrument giving someone authority to act as the grantor's agent or attorney-in-fact.
- letter of attornmentA landlord's letter telling a tenant that the property has been sold and directing that rent be paid to the new owner.
- letter of commentA letter from the SEC to someone registering a securities offering, setting out how the registration statement falls…
- letter of credenceA document accrediting a diplomat to the government of the country they are sent to.
- letter of creditAn instrument under which a bank, at a customer's request, promises to honor a draft or other demand for payment by a…
- letter of exchangeAn unconditional written order by which one person directs another to pay a sum of money, on demand or at a fixed tim…
- letter of intentA written statement of what parties have provisionally agreed while heading toward a contract. It is not meant to bin…
- letter of licenseAn agreement signed by all the creditors of a struggling business giving the debtor more time to pay, letting it carr…
- letter of recallA letter from one country's executive to another's announcing that it is calling its minister home. The phrase also c…
- letter of recredentialsA formal letter from a host country's foreign ministry to a minister or ambassador who has been recalled, accrediting…
- letter of requestA document one court issues to a court in another country, asking it to take evidence from a named person or serve pr…
- letter of the lawThe strictly literal meaning of the law, as opposed to the purpose behind it.
- letter of undertakingAn agreement by which a shipowner, to keep creditors from seizing the ship, promises to post security, enter an appea…
- letter rogatoryA document one court issues to a court in another country, asking it to take evidence from a named person or serve pr…
- letter rulingA written statement the IRS gives a taxpayer who asks, explaining the tax consequences of a particular transaction.
- letter securityA security not registered with the SEC, which may therefore be sold publicly only on stated conditions. It is usually…
- letter stockA security not registered with the SEC, which may therefore be sold publicly only on stated conditions. It is usually…
- letter-bookA merchant's book for keeping copies of correspondence.
- lettersIn the law of wills and estates, letters of administration, conservatorship, guardianship, and testamentary letters t…
- letters ad colligendum bona defunctiAuthority given by a judicial officer to a trusted person to collect and look after the goods of someone who died int…
- letters closeA government document issued to a private person under seal and closed, so that it is not open to public inspection.
- letters of absolutionLetters by which an abbot released a member of his order from vows of obedience, allowing him to enter another order.
- letters of administrationThe formal document by which a probate court appoints the administrator of an estate. The practice goes back to a sta…
- letters of administration c.t.a.Letters appointing an administrator with the will annexed, granted where the will names no executor or the named exec…
- letters of administration de bonis nonLetters appointing an administrator to finish winding up an estate that the named executor left incomplete, covering…
- letters of credenceA document accrediting a diplomat to the government of the country they are sent to.
- letters of guardianshipA court document appointing a guardian to look after the person, property, and affairs of a child or an incapacitated…
- letters of marqueA licence authorizing a private citizen to seize the ships or goods of another nation in reprisal. Congress alone may…
- letters of safe conductFormal permission from the English sovereign allowing a subject of an enemy nation to travel and ship goods to Englan…
- letters of slainsLetters to the Crown from the family of a person killed, agreeing to the offender's petition for a royal pardon. With…
- letters patentA document granting a right or privilege, issued under a government seal but left open for public inspection; above a…
- letters rogatoryA document one court issues to a court in another country, asking it to take evidence from a named person or serve pr…
- letters secretA government document issued to a private person under seal and closed, so that it is not open to public inspection.
- letters testamentaryThe document by which a probate court confirms an executor's appointment under a will and authorizes them to administ…
- lettreA formal instrument granting some authority.
- lettre de cachetA royal warrant ordering a person's imprisonment without trial.
- leucaA league: in French usage 1,500 paces, elsewhere 1,000. The word also named the privileged space of a mile around a m…
- levance and couchanceThe state of being levant and couchant: of cattle, having stayed on another's land long enough to lie down and rise a…
- levandae navis causaIn maritime law, throwing goods overboard to save a ship from total loss, which entitles the owner to contribution fr…
- levant and couchantOf cattle, having trespassed on land long enough to lie down and rise to feed again, usually at least a night and a d…
- levari faciasA writ of execution ordering the sheriff to seize a judgment debtor's goods and the income from their land until the…
- levari facias damna de disseisitoribusA writ directing the sheriff to levy on property to pay damages owed to someone wrongfully put out of a freehold.
- levari facias quando vicecomes returnavit quod non habuit emptoresA writ directing a sheriff who had seized property and found no buyers for it to sell as much further property as was…
- levari facias residuum debitiA writ directing the sheriff to levy on a debtor's land or goods to pay what remains of a partly satisfied debt.
- levato veloThe rule, applied first to wreck and salvage and later to maritime cases generally, that they should be heard promptl…
- leveeAn embankment built along a river to keep it from flooding; also a landing place on navigable water for loading goods…
- levee districtA local or regional public body organized to build and maintain levees within its area at public expense.
- level-premium insuranceInsurance whose premiums stay the same throughout the life of the policy. Most whole-life policies work this way.
- level-rate legal-reserve policyA policy designed to build up a reserve equal to its face value by the end of the insured's life.
- leverageAdvantage or effectiveness; in finance, the use of borrowed money to increase the return on an investment, the advant…
- leverage contractAn agreement to buy or sell a contract for future delivery of a commodity, usually silver, gold, or another precious…
- leverage fundA closed-end fund holding two classes of stock, one paying dividends and one aimed at capital growth, so that it comb…
- leverage ratioThe ratio between a company's debt and its equity capital.
- leveraged buyoutThe purchase of a public company's shares by its management or by outside investors, funded largely with money borrow…
- leveraged leaseA lease that itself secures the loan the lessor used to buy the asset, the lender's only recourse being to the lease.…
- leveraged recapitalizationA recapitalization in which a company swaps debt for equity in its capital structure, usually to make itself a less t…
- leveraging upA recapitalization in which a company swaps debt for equity in its capital structure, usually to make itself a less t…
- leviableCapable of being levied or assessed; also liable to be seized in execution of a judgment.
- levirA husband's brother; also a wife's brother-in-law.
- levis culpaSlight fault: the want of the care an ordinarily careful person would take.
- levissima culpaThe slightest fault: a want of the extreme care that only the most scrupulous person would take.
- levyThe imposing of a tax or fine, and the tax or fine itself; also the raising of troops, and, in execution, the lawful…
- levy courtA court that once sat in the District of Columbia, doing much of the work county commissioners or supervisors do in t…
- levy en masseA mass conscription or mobilization of troops, above all in the face of a threatened invasion.
- levy of executionThe lawful seizure and sale of property under a writ of execution, and the money so raised.
- lewdObscene or indecent; tending toward moral impurity.
- lewd and lascivious cohabitationAt common law, a man and a woman openly living together without being married to each other.
- lewd houseA house where criminal or immoral activities are carried on, such as a brothel or a drug house.
- lewdnessGross and public indecency, outlawed by statute in many states: a sexual act the actor knows is likely to be seen by…
- lexLaw, above all statutory law, as opposed to natural law. Strictly, lex is a statute while jus is law in general and a…
- lex actusThe law of the place where the act was done, which governs its legal effect.
- lex anastasianaA law giving emancipated brothers and sisters the same share on intestacy as those not emancipated; also a law provid…
- lex BaiuvariorumThe law of Bavaria, one of the barbarian nations of the early Middle Ages, first collected with the laws of the Frank…
- lex BoiorumThe law of Bavaria, one of the barbarian nations of the early Middle Ages, first collected with the laws of the Frank…
- lex contractusThe law of the place where the contract was made, which governs its validity and interpretation.
- lex Cornelia de aedictisA Roman law forbidding a praetor to depart, during his year of office, from the edict he had published at its start.
- lex Cornelia de falsoA Roman law of Sulla's dictatorship punishing forgery, which fixed the same penalty for forging the will of a person…
- lex Cornelia de sicariisA Roman law of Sulla's dictatorship against assassins and poisoners, which made killing another's slave punishable by…
- lex Cornelia de sponsuA Roman law forbidding anyone to stand surety for the same debtor to the same creditor, within one year, for more tha…
- lex DanorumThe body of rules the Danes brought during their invasions of England, kept up mainly in the midland and eastern coun…
- lex delictiThe law of the place where the wrong was committed.
- lex FalcidiaA Roman law providing that no one could leave more than three quarters of their estate in legacies, so that the heirs…
- lex FrisionumThe law of the Frisians, promulgated in the middle of the eighth century.
- lex Fusia CaniniaThe Roman statute of 2 B.C. that capped the number of enslaved people an owner could set free by will, on a sliding s…
- lex generalisA law of general application, as opposed to one aimed at a particular person or a small group.
- lex GenuciaA Roman law, often and easily evaded, forbidding the charging of interest on loans between Roman citizens.
- lex Horatia ValeriaA Roman law making enactments of the assembly of the people by tribes binding on all citizens.
- lex HortensiaA Roman law giving the plebeians full part in public government and worship, and making the enactments of the plebeia…
- lex Hostilia de furtisA Roman law allowing the state to prosecute a theft without the owner taking part, as where the owner was away on off…
- lex Julia de annonaA Roman law against combinations formed to drive up the price of basic goods, above all food.
- lex Julia de cessione bonorumA Roman law governing bankruptcy, allowing a debtor to surrender their goods to creditors and so escape harsher measu…
- lex Julia de majestateA Roman law imposing capital punishment on anyone acting against the emperor or the state.
- lex Julia de maritandis ordinibusA Roman marriage law that barred senators and their children from marrying freed slaves or people of disgraced status…
- lex Julia de peculatuA Roman law punishing theft of public money, public property, or sacred objects with death or deportation.
- lex Julia de residuisA Roman law punishing officials who could not account for public money in their charge.
- lex Junia NorbanaA Roman law giving improperly freed slaves a limited freedom without full citizenship, the status known as Latin Junian.
- lex Junia VellejaA Roman law providing that certain descendants must be treated as children born after the deceased's death for the pu…
- lex ligeantiaeThe law of the country a person owes allegiance to. Some jurists have argued that it, rather than the law of the domi…
- lex lociThe law of the place: local law.
- lex loci delictiThe law of the place where the wrong was committed.
- lex loci solutionisThe law of the place where a contract is to be performed, above all where payment is to be made.
- lex merciorumThe law of the Mercians, one of the three main bodies of law in England at the start of the 11th century, followed in…
- lex naturaeA body of legal and moral principles said to flow from human nature or divine justice rather than from any legislatur…
- lex naturaleNatural law: the body of principles said to flow from human nature or divine justice rather than from human enactment.
- lex ordinandiThe law of the forum, which governs the procedure by which a case is conducted.
- lex patriaeThe law of a person's own country.
- lex PetroniaA Roman law forbidding a master to hand a slave over to fight wild beasts for sport without a magistrate's leave.
- lex PlaetoriaA Roman law protecting people under 25 against being defrauded and allowing them to apply for a guardian.
- lex PoeteliaA Roman law abolishing a creditor's right to treat a debtor inhumanely, as by beating or chaining them.
- lex Pompeia de parricidiisA Roman law punishing the killing of one's own parent, child, or other close relative. The offender was sewn into a s…
- lex posterior derogat prioriThe rule that a later statute overrides an earlier one, where it expressly repeals it or cannot be reconciled with it.
- lex SiliaA Roman law providing for personal actions to recover a fixed sum of money.
- lex situsThe law of the place where property is situated.
- lex solutionisThe law of the place where a contract is to be performed, above all where payment is to be made.
- lex talionisThe law of retaliation, under which the punishment matches the wrong: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.
- lex TheodosianaThe Breviary of Alaric: a compilation of Roman law made for the Visigothic king Alaric II in 506, which long served a…
- lex VisigothorumThe law of the Visigoths, the branch of the Goths who conquered Spain in the fifth century.
- lexical definitionA dictionary-style definition setting out the full meaning of a word.
- LexisAn online service giving access to databases of legal material, including federal and state case law, statutes, and c…
- ley gagerWager of law: the defendant's giving security to make law, that is, to swear to the defense on an appointed day with…
- leze majestyInjury to majesty: an offense against the sovereign or the state, above all treason.
- LHWCALongshore and Harbor Workers' Compensation Act.
- liabilityBeing legally answerable to another or to society, whether through a civil remedy or a criminal penalty; also a finan…
- liability bondA bond protecting the insured against loss arising from an event specified in it.
- liability dividendA dividend paid in certificates entitling the holder to shares that the company has yet to issue. It usually signals…
- liability in solidoLiability for the whole of an obligation, so that the creditor may demand full performance from any one of several de…
- liability insuranceAn agreement to cover a loss arising from the insured's liability to someone else, as where a driver injures a pedest…
- liability limitThe most an insurer will pay on a single claim under a policy.
- liability without faultLiability that does not turn on carelessness or intent to harm, but on breaching an absolute duty to make something s…
- liableAnswerable in law; also, of a person, exposed to a fine or penalty.
- libelA defamatory statement in a fixed form, above all in writing but also in a picture, sign, or broadcast. It counts as…
- libel of reviewA fresh proceeding attacking a final decree after the time for appealing has run out.
- libel per quodLibel that is not defamatory on the face of the words, so that the plaintiff must plead outside facts to show the def…
- libel per seLibel that is defamatory on the face of the words, so that no outside facts and no proof of special damage are needed…
- libelantThe party who begins a suit in an admiralty or ecclesiastical court by filing a libel; also a person who publishes a…
- libeleeThe party against whom a libel is filed in an admiralty or ecclesiastical court.
- libelerA person who publishes a written defamation.
- libellousAmounting to libel; defamatory.
- libellusA small book, a writing, or a petition. In older usage the word also meant an instrument conveying land, and any of v…
- libellus appellatoriusIn Roman law, an appeal.
- libellus consultatoriusIn Roman law, a petition to the emperor from a judge or official asking for guidance on a point of law.
- libellus famosusA defamatory publication.
- libelousAmounting to libel; defamatory.
- liberOf courts and public places, open and accessible; of a person, free, whether by birth or by release from another's se…
- liber assisarumA collection of cases from the assizes and other country trials, forming the fourth volume of the reports of the reig…
- liber et legalis homoA free and lawful man: someone of full legal standing, qualified to serve on a jury and to sue and be sued.
- liber iudiciorumThe law of the Visigoths, the branch of the Goths who conquered Spain in the fifth century.
- liber nigerAn old record book, such as the register in the Exchequer or a register of the charters of abbeys and cathedrals.
- Liber Niger ParvusA record book of treaties, conventions, charters, papal bulls, and other English state documents, dating from the 13t…
- liber ruber scaccariiThe red book of the Exchequer: an old register naming those who held land by barony in the reign of Henry II.
- libera batellaThe right to keep a boat for fishing in certain waters: a free fishery.
- libera chasea habendaA judicial writ granting a person the right to a free chase belonging to their manor, issued after a jury had found t…
- libera eleemosynaA spiritual tenure by which a religious house held land, usually in return for an unenforceable duty to pray for the…
- libera faldaThe right of free fold: a lord's right to fold sheep on the tenants' land, so as to have the benefit of the manure.
- libera piscariaAn exclusive right of fishing in public water such as a river or an arm of the sea, held by grant from the Crown or b…
- libera warrenaFree warren: the exclusive right, granted by the Crown, to keep and take game such as hares, rabbits, pheasants, and…
- liberalNot restricted; expansive or tolerant. Of a person, opposed to conservatism and favoring broad freedoms; of an act, g…
- liberal constructionReading a document in the light of the situation it faces, so as to carry out its spirit and purpose.
- liberal interpretationReading a text according to what the reader believes the author reasonably meant, even where the author never thought…
- liberareIn civil law, to set a person free; in older usage, to deliver or transfer a writ or other document.
- liberateA Chancery writ to the Exchequer ordering payment of a pension or other yearly sum; also a writ to a sheriff authoriz…
- liberatioMoney paid for the delivery or use of a thing.
- liberationSetting someone or something free; in civil law, the final payment under a contract, which extinguishes the debt.
- liberation movementIn international law, an organized effort to win political independence for a nation or people.
- liberativeServing to free or release.
- liberative prescriptionThe barring of a claim because it was not brought in time: the civil-law counterpart of a statute of limitations.
- liberiChildren; in Roman law also free persons as opposed to slaves.
- libertasA privilege or franchise.
- libertas ecclesiasticaThe immunity from secular law once enjoyed by religious houses subject to church law instead.
- libertatibus allocandisA writ allowing a person entitled to particular liberties to obtain them.
- libertatibus exigendis in itinereA writ from the king to the itinerant justices ordering them to admit an attorney to represent a criminal defendant.
- libertiFreed slaves, considered in their continuing relation to their former masters, who were called patrons.
- liberticideThe destruction of liberty; also a person who destroys it.
- libertiesDistricts privileged to be outside the sheriff's jurisdiction. In colonial America the word also named political subd…
- libertiniFreed slaves, considered as a class in their own right rather than in relation to their former masters.
- libertyFreedom from arbitrary or undue restraint, above all by government; also a right, privilege, or immunity held by gran…
- Liberty ClauseThe Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment, so called for the liberty it protects.
- liberty interestAn interest in freedom that the due-process clauses of the state and federal constitutions protect.
- liberty notA liberty consisting in freedom from any duty to act: the right to refrain from doing something.
- liberty of a portIn marine insurance, a term in the policy allowing the vessel to put in and trade at a named port other than her prin…
- liberty of contractThe doctrine that people are free to bind themselves by agreement, and that contracts rest on mutual assent and free…
- liberty of speechThe right to express one's thoughts and opinions without government restraint, guaranteed by the First Amendment.
- liberty of the globeIn marine insurance, a term in the policy allowing the vessel to go anywhere in the world rather than being confined…
- liberty of the pressThe right to print and publish without government interference, guaranteed by the First Amendment.
- liberum maritagiumAn entailed estate in which the donor kept control of the land by refusing feudal services from the donee, usually a…
- liberum vetoIn old Poland, the right of any single member of the diet to defeat a measure by his sole objection.
- libraAn English pound: a sum equal to a pound sterling.
- libripensThe person who held the bronze balance at a Roman sale, whether real or ceremonial, such as the rite emancipating a s…
- licenseRevocable permission to do something that would otherwise be unlawful, above all permission to come onto another's la…
- license bondA bond required of someone seeking a licence to carry on a particular business or to enjoy a particular privilege.
- license coupled with an interestA licence that cannot be revoked because it comes with an interest in land or goods. A court may enjoin an attempt to…
- license feeA charge a government imposes for the privilege of carrying on a particular trade, business, or activity, sometimes c…
- license in amortizationA licence authorizing a conveyance of property that the mortmain statutes would otherwise forbid.
- license taxA charge a government imposes for the privilege of carrying on a particular trade, business, or activity.
- licenseeA person to whom a licence is granted; in the law of occupiers' liability, a person allowed onto premises for their o…
- licensee by invitationA person expressly or impliedly permitted onto premises to do business with the occupier or to do something for the o…
- licensee by permissionA person allowed onto premises, by permission or passive consent, for their own convenience, curiosity, or amusement.
- licensee with an interestA licensee whose permission to be on the premises is coupled with an interest of their own, such as a right to remove…
- licensingThe granting of permission, for payment, to use something protected by copyright, patent, or trademark; also a govern…
- licensorA person who grants a licence to another.
- licentia surgendiA writ giving a tenant in a real action leave to rise from bed and come to court, after pleading illness that had con…
- licentiateA person who holds a licence or authoritative permission to perform some function, above all to practice a profession.
- licentiousIgnoring moral or legal restraint, above all in sexual conduct: lewd or lascivious.
- licereTo be allowed by law; also to bid for something, as at an auction.
- licetIt is permitted, or lawful; also, it is granted or conceded.
- licitNot forbidden by law: permitted.
- licitariTo bid for something, above all repeatedly during the same sale.
- licitationOffering for sale or bidding at auction, above all, in civil law, an auction held to divide property held in common.
- Lidford lawA form of lynch law in which a person is punished first and tried afterwards, named for the town of Lidford, now Lydf…
- lieTo tell an untruth; separately, of an action, to be legally sustainable, as in the phrase the action will lie.
- lie detectorA device that gauges truthfulness by measuring involuntary bodily changes during questioning. Its results are inadmis…
- lie in franchiseOf wrecks, waifs, and strays, capable of being seized without any court proceeding.
- lie in grantOf incorporeal hereditaments, capable of passing by deed or charter, without any ceremony of livery of seisin.
- lie in liveryOf corporeal hereditaments, capable of passing by livery of seisin rather than by deed.
- liegeA vassal bound by feudal allegiance, or a loyal subject of a sovereign; the word also means the lord to whom that all…
- liege homageHomage one sovereign paid to another, with pledges of loyalty and service.
- liege lordA feudal lord entitled to allegiance and service: a sovereign or superior lord.
- liege manA vassal bound by feudal allegiance.
- liege womanA vassal bound by feudal allegiance.
- liegerIn older usage, a resident ambassador or agent.
- lienA creditor's legal interest in another's property, lasting until the debt or duty it secures is met. The creditor doe…
- lien accountA statement of claims that tells the owner and the public fairly what a lien is for and how much it secures.
- lien avoidanceIn bankruptcy, the stripping away of a creditor's security interest in an asset of the estate.
- lien creditorA creditor whose claim is secured by a lien on the debtor's property.
- lien of a covenantThe opening part of a covenant, naming the parties and stating what kind of covenant it is.
- lien of attachmentA lien on property seized under a prejudgment attachment. It is incomplete at first but becomes final when judgment i…
- lien of factor at common lawA factor's right at common law to keep goods consigned to them, and the proceeds of those goods, until the advances a…
- lien of garnishmentA lien on the debtor's property in the garnishee's hands. It arises in the garnishing creditor's favor the moment the…
- lien of judgmentA lien placed on a judgment debtor's non-exempt property, giving the creditor the right to seize it.
- lien theoryThe view that a mortgage is in substance a lien, so that the lender takes only a charge on the property while the bor…
- lien waiverA signed waiver by a subcontractor of the right to a mechanic's lien, usually given so that the owner or general cont…
- lien-strippingIn bankruptcy, splitting a mortgagee's claim into secured and unsecured parts and cutting the secured claim down to t…
- lienableOf property, capable of being made subject to a lien.
- lieneeThe person whose property is subject to a lien.
- lienholderA person who holds a lien.
- lienorA person who holds a lien.
- lieu conusA place generally known to those around it, such as a castle or a manor.
- lieu landLand granted in place of land in an earlier grant that turned out to be unavailable, as where a railroad or a state t…
- lieu taxA tax charged in place of another.
- lieutenancyThe rank, office, or commission of a lieutenant.
- lieutenantA deputy or substitute for another, acting on that person's authority. The word also forms part of many civil and mil…
- lieutenant colonelIn the United States military, an officer ranking below a colonel and above a major.
- lieutenant commanderIn the United States Navy, an officer ranking below a commander and above a lieutenant.
- lieutenant generalIn the United States Army, an officer ranking below a four-star general and above a major general.
- lieutenant governorA deputy governor, sometimes charged with presiding over the state legislature, and above all important as the govern…
- life annuityAn annuity payable only for as long as the annuitant lives, even if they die early.
- life beneficiaryA person entitled to receive payments or other benefits from a trust for life.
- life estateAn estate lasting only for the life of a named person, usually the holder's own, as with a grant to Jane for life.
- life estate pur autre vieA life estate measured by someone else's life rather than the life tenant's own.
- life expectancyThe period a person of a given age and sex may be expected to live according to actuarial tables; also the period a p…
- life in beingUnder the rule against perpetuities, anyone alive when the future interest is created, whether or not they have any i…
- life insuranceAn agreement under which an insurer pays a stated sum to a named beneficiary when the insured dies.
- life interestAn interest in property measured by the length of the holder's life, or of some other named person's life.
- life landLand leased for a term measured by the life of one or more people.
- life of a writThe period during which a writ may be executed, which normally ends on the day the law or the writ itself requires it…
- life peerageThe grant of a barony to a person for their lifetime only, made by letters patent. The Life Peerages Act of 1958 intr…
- life policyA life policy requiring fixed annual premiums for life and paying out only on the insured's death.
- life reserveThe reserve a life insurer must keep to meet its future obligations under policies in force.
- life sentenceA sentence imprisoning the offender for the rest of their life, though in many states such a prisoner becomes eligibl…
- life tableAn actuarial table showing what proportion of people may be expected to live to each age.
- life tenancyAn estate lasting only as long as a specified person lives, usually the holder. Most are created by a grant in terms…
- life tenantA person entitled to the beneficial enjoyment of land until death: the holder of a life estate.
- life-care contractAn agreement under which one party is guaranteed care and maintenance for life in return for transferring property to…
- life-holdLand leased for a term measured by the life of one or more people.
- life-income period-certain annuityAn annuity guaranteeing a set number of payments even if the annuitant dies before the minimum has been paid out.
- life-insurance trustA trust whose property consists of one or more life-insurance policies payable to the trust on the insured's death.
- life-ownerA person entitled to the beneficial enjoyment of land until death: the holder of a life estate.
- life-qualified juryIn a capital case, a jury drawn from a panel from which the judge has excluded anyone unwilling or unable to consider…
- life-rentIn Scots law, the right to receive the income or use of property for life, without the right to dispose of the proper…
- life-sustaining procedureA medical procedure that uses mechanical or artificial means to sustain, restore, or replace a vital function and tha…
- lifelodeLivelihood; the means of maintenance.
- liferA prisoner serving a sentence of life imprisonment.
- lifetime giftA gift made during the giver's lifetime and handed over with the intention of giving up control of the property for g…
- LIFOLast-in, first-out: the accounting method that treats the most recently acquired goods as the first sold.
- liftTo end or revoke something, as where a court lifts a stay; also to pay off a debt, and, informally, to steal.
- lifting costsIn oil-and-gas law, the costs of producing oil and gas once drilling is done but before the product leaves the proper…
- ligaA league or confederation.
- ligareTo tie or bind; also to enter into a treaty or league.
- ligeaA female subject: a liege woman.
- ligeanceThe obedience a subject owes their sovereign or government; also the territory over which that sovereign rules.
- ligenGoods thrown overboard but tied to a buoy so that they can be found and recovered.
- ligeusA male subject: a liege man.
- light most favorableThe standard by which a court reviews a verdict, taking as true all the evidence and inferences that support it and s…
- light workWork involving some limited lifting and moving. Under the Social Security Administration's rules for describing what…
- light-and-air easementA negative easement stopping a neighboring owner from putting up a building that would cut off light or air from the…
- lighterageThe loading and unloading of goods between a ship and a lighter, and the payment for that service; also the moving of…
- lights, ancientThe common-law rule by which a landowner who had enjoyed light through a window for twenty years without interruption…
- ligiusA person bound to another by a solemn tie, as a subject is bound to a sovereign.
- lignagiumA right to cut firewood, and the payment made for that right.
- ligulaA copy or transcript of a court roll or a deed.
- likeEqual in quantity, quality, or degree; also similar or substantially so.
- like-kind exchangeAn exchange of business or investment property, other than stock in trade or securities, for property of the same kin…
- like-kind propertyIn tax law, property so similar in kind, class, or character to other property that exchanging one for the other prod…
- likelihood-of-confusion testIn trademark law, the test for infringement: whether a substantial number of ordinarily careful buyers are likely to…
- likelihood-of-success-on-the-merits testThe rule that a party seeking a preliminary injunction, or a stay of a judgment pending appeal, must show a reasonabl…
- limbo timeThe stretch of time when an employee is neither on duty nor off duty, as with a railroad worker waiting for transport…
- limenarchaIn Roman law, the officer in charge of a harbor or port.
- limineAt the threshold: describing a motion made before trial, usually to keep particular evidence out.
- limine outOf a court, to exclude evidence by granting a motion in limine.
- limitA restriction; also a boundary, or the extent of a power, right, or authority.
- limit of liabilityThe most an insurer will pay on a single claim under a policy.
- limit orderAn order to buy or sell at a stated price or better, whatever the market price may be.
- limitationThe act of limiting, and the state of being limited; also a restriction, and the statutory period after which a suit…
- limitation of assizeThe period a statute allowed within which a person had to allege they were properly seised of the land claimed under…
- limitation on indebtednessA ceiling on how much a person, business, or government may borrow. Many state constitutions forbid the state to run…
- limitation overA further estate created in a conveyance, to be enjoyed once the first estate ends. A grant to A for life, remainder…
- limitation periodThe statutory period after which a suit or prosecution can no longer be brought.
- limitation-of-damages clauseA contract term by which the parties agree in advance on the most that may be recovered as damages for a future breach.
- limitation-of-liability actA statute limiting the kinds of damages recoverable, the liability of particular people or groups, or the time within…
- limitation-of-remedies clauseA contract term narrowing the remedies available to the parties if one of them defaults.
- limitations periodThe statutory period after which a suit or prosecution can no longer be brought.
- limitations, statute ofA statute setting a time limit for bringing a civil claim, running from when the claim accrued, as when the injury ha…
- limited administrationAn administration limited to a set period or to a particular purpose.
- limited admissibilityThe principle that evidence may be admitted for one purpose only. Common examples are earlier inconsistent testimony…
- limited appealAn appeal against only part of a decision, usually the part unfavorable to the appellant.
- limited appearanceA defendant's appearance made solely to argue that the court has no personal jurisdiction over them, or that service…
- limited companyA company in which each shareholder risks only what they put in. A corporation is the commonest example.
- limited courtA court whose special jurisdiction comes from statute, such as a probate court.
- limited defenseAn ordinary contract defense, such as failure of consideration or non-performance of a condition, which the maker or…
- limited divorceA divorce making no provision for one spouse to support the other; loosely, a legal separation.
- limited executorAn executor whose appointment is limited in some way, whether by time, place, or subject matter.
- limited feeA fee coupled with a qualification, which ends when the qualification does. A grant to A and his heirs for as long as…
- limited guarantyA guaranty confined to a particular transaction or to a stated maximum amount, rather than covering all of the debtor…
- limited interdictA person whose right to look after themselves has been partly taken away because of mental incapacity.
- limited interdictionThe partial removal of a person's right to manage their own affairs or property because of mental incapacity.
- limited interpretationA reading confined by principles lying outside the text being interpreted.
- limited jurisdictionJurisdiction confined to a particular kind of case, or exercisable only within statutory limits.
- limited liabilityLiability capped by law or contract, above all the liability of a company's owners, which goes no further than the ca…
- limited monarchyA monarchy in which the monarch's power is bounded by a constitution or by other restraints.
- limited ownerA tenant for life: the holder of a life estate.
- limited partnerA partner who shares in the profits but takes no part in managing the business and is liable for no more than the amo…
- limited partnershipA partnership made up of one or more general partners, who run the business and are personally liable for its debts,…
- limited partnership associationA business form combining features of a limited partnership and a close corporation. Only a few states recognize it b…
- limited policyAn insurance policy that expressly leaves certain kinds of loss uncovered.
- limited policy insuranceInsurance covering only named perils, such as cover confined to one kind of illness or to a risk tied to a stated act…
- limited power of appointmentA power of appointment that lets the holder appoint only to the person or class the creating instrument names.
- limited public forumPublic property not traditionally open for assembly and debate, which the government has nonetheless opened for expre…
- limited publicationA distribution of copies to a selected group only, at a time when copies are not available to anyone outside it, made…
- limited trustA trust created to last for a limited period only.
- limited vetoA veto that stands unless the legislature overrides it by an extraordinary majority. The President of the United Stat…
- limited warrantyA warranty that does not fully cover parts and labor for repairs. Federal law requires that it be clearly labeled as…
- limited-capacity wellAn oil or gas well producing only part of its permitted monthly allowance because demand in the market is short.
- limited-liability companyA business form allowed in most states, combining limited liability for its members with management by the members th…
- limited-liability corporationA company whose members or shareholders risk only the money they have put in, and are not personally answerable for i…
- limited-liability partnershipA partnership in which a partner is not personally liable for the negligence of another partner, or of an employee th…
- limited-payment life insuranceLife insurance whose premiums are payable for a period shorter than the life of the cover.
- limited-policy insuranceInsurance covering only named perils, such as health cover confined to one kind of illness or to a risk tied to a sta…
- limited-purpose public figureA person who has become well known in connection with one particular public issue, and who counts as a public figure…
- Lindbergh ActThe federal statute punishing kidnapping for ransom or reward where the victim is carried across state or national li…
- lineA boundary or limit; also a person's trade or business, and a person's ancestry or lineage.
- line of creditThe most a lender will let a borrower draw, to be taken down as and when the borrower needs it.
- line of demarcationIn international law, a provisional boundary separating territories under different authorities, drawn where the poli…
- line-item vetoAn executive's power to strike out particular provisions of a bill while letting the rest become law. The Supreme Cou…
- linea directaThe direct line of descent, running between ancestors and descendants such as parent and child.
- linea obliquaIn Roman law, the relationship between people in the collateral line, such as an uncle and a nephew.
- linea retaThe direct line of descent, running between ancestors and descendants such as parent and child.
- linea transversaIn Roman law, the relationship between people in the collateral line, such as an uncle and a nephew.
- linea transversalisThe collateral line of relationship, running between people who share an ancestor but do not descend from one another.
- lineageA person's ancestors and descendants taken together: the family line in both directions.
- linealDescending in a direct line from a common ancestor.
- lineal consanguinityThe relationship between people descended one from another in a direct line, such as mother and daughter or great-gra…
- lineal descentDescent in a straight line, as from father or grandfather to son or grandson.
- lineal heirAn heir who descends in a direct line from the deceased, such as a child or grandchild.
- lineal warrantyThe description of land by its boundary lines, giving compass bearings and distances from point to point.
- lines and cornersA warranty arising where an heir takes title to land from the person who gave the warranty, or from the same ancestor…
- lineupA police procedure in which a suspect stands with others of similar appearance so that a victim or witness can say wh…
- Lingle testThe rule that a union member's state-law claim against an employer is not displaced by federal labor law unless decid…
- linkA unit in a connected series, or something that binds separate things together; also a unit of land measurement, one…
- link financingGetting credit by putting money into someone else's bank account so that the account holder can obtain a loan.
- link-in-chain principleIn criminal procedure, the rule that the privilege against self-incrimination covers not only directly incriminating…
- LIPLegally incapacitated person: someone other than a minor who is so impaired by mental illness or deficiency, physical…
- liquereTo be clear or evident. A judex appointed to try a civil case who swore that the matter was not clear to him, sibi no…
- liquidOf an asset, readily turned into cash; of a person or business, holding assets that can be readily turned into cash.
- liquid assetAn asset readily turned into cash, such as a marketable security, a note, or a receivable.
- liquid debtA debt due immediately and without any condition attached.
- liquidateTo fix by litigation or agreement the amount of a debt or of damages; also to settle an obligation by paying it, and…
- liquidatedOf a sum or debt, fixed or agreed; of an asset, turned into cash.
- liquidated amountA figure that can be worked out readily from the terms of an agreement.
- liquidated claimA claim for an amount the parties have already agreed, or that can be worked out exactly from the law or from the ter…
- liquidated damagesA sum the parties agree in the contract as a reasonable estimate of the loss one will suffer if the other breaks it.…
- liquidated debtA debt whose amount has been settled by the parties' agreement or fixed by law.
- liquidated demandA claim for a sum the parties have already agreed on, or one that can be worked out exactly from the law or from the…
- liquidated-damages clauseA contract term fixing in advance what damages a breach will cost. Courts uphold such a clause unless the sum looks l…
- liquidating distributionA handing out of business assets by a company or partnership that is being wound up.
- liquidating dividendA dividend paid to shareholders of a company that is winding up, usually out of capital rather than profits, when it…
- liquidating partnerThe partner appointed to settle the accounts, collect the assets, adjust the claims, and pay the debts of a firm that…
- liquidating priceThe price paid for a bond redeemed at the issuer's option before maturity; also the price a mutual-fund shareholder r…
- liquidating trustA trust meant to be wound up as soon as practicable, as where a dead person's business is put in trust to keep it saf…
- liquidationFixing by agreement or litigation the exact amount of something previously uncertain, such as a debt or damages; also…
- liquidation dividendA dividend paid to the shareholders of a company being wound up, usually out of its capital, once it decides to close…
- liquidation preferenceA preferred shareholder's right, on the winding up of the company, to receive a stated amount before the common share…
- liquidation priceThe price got for property sold to pay off a debt, usually below what the market would otherwise give.
- liquidation valueWhat a business or an asset fetches when sold on a winding up, as opposed to what it would fetch sold in the ordinary…
- liquidatorA person appointed to wind up a business's affairs, above all by selling off its assets.
- liquidityThe quality of being readily turned into cash. In securities law it means having enough units traded that large trans…
- liquidity ratioThe ratio between the cash and near-cash assets a person or business holds and its current liabilities, showing wheth…
- liquor offenseAny crime involving the unlawful use or sale of intoxicating liquor.
- lisA lawsuit; a controversy or dispute.
- lis pendensA pending lawsuit; also the control a court gains over property while an action about it is pending, and the notice r…
- listA roll or register of names; also a docket of cases ready for hearing.
- list of creditorsA schedule of creditors' names and addresses with the amounts owed to each, required in a bankruptcy case.
- list priceThe published or advertised price of goods: the retail price.
- listed securityA security accepted for trading on an exchange. The issuer must have met the SEC's registration requirements and sati…
- listed security exchangeAn organized secondary market for securities operating at a set location, such as the New York Stock Exchange.
- listed stockA security accepted for trading on an exchange. The issuer must have met the SEC's registration requirements and sati…
- listerA person authorized to compile lists of taxable property for assessment: an assessor.
- listingAn agreement between a property owner and an agent under which the agent tries to find a buyer or tenant on stated te…
- listing agentThe broker's representative who obtains the listing agreement from the owner.
- listing agreementAn agreement between a property owner and an agent under which the agent tries to find a buyer or tenant on stated te…
- litemFor the purposes of the suit, or while the suit is pending.
- litem denuntiareThe summoning of a defendant by a magistrate in the later Roman law; also a buyer's notice to the seller that a third…
- litem suam facereIn Roman law, of a judge, to make the case his own by showing partiality to one side or otherwise neglecting his duty…
- literaA letter; also the letter of a law, as opposed to its spirit.
- litera legisThe strictly literal meaning of the law, as opposed to the purpose behind it.
- literacy testA test of a person's ability to read and write, once required in some states before a citizen could register to vote.…
- literae sigillataeSealed letters. A sheriff's return on a writ was often so called.
- literalAccording to the words as expressed. Literal performance of a condition means exact compliance with its terms.
- literal canonThe view that a judge should read a document or statute, above all a penal one, according to its literal terms, witho…
- literal constructionReading a document by its words alone, taking them narrowly and often in their historical sense.
- literal contractIn Roman law, a contract created, and later merely evidenced, by writing the sum owed on the debit side of a ledger.…
- literal infringementIn patent law, infringement in which every element and every limitation of a patent claim appears exactly in the accu…
- literal interpretationA reading that looks only at the literal words, taking them narrowly and often in their historical sense. It is the a…
- literal proofProof by written document, as opposed to proof by witnesses.
- literal ruleThe view that a judge should read a document or statute, above all a penal one, according to its literal terms, witho…
- literaryHaving to do with literature, books, or writings.
- literary compositionAn original expression of mental effort in written words set out in an intelligible and purposeful order.
- literary propertyThe physical thing in which an intellectual work is embodied, such as a book, screenplay, or lecture; also the owner'…
- literary workA work other than an audiovisual one, expressed in words, numbers, or other symbols, whatever medium carries it.
- literateAble to read and write; also knowledgeable and well educated.
- literaturaEducation. The phrase ad literaturam ponere meant the right to have one's children, above all sons, educated. Under f…
- litigableCapable of being contested in court.
- litigationThe carrying on of a lawsuit; also the lawsuit itself.
- litigation costsThe expenses of bringing or defending a lawsuit, including court fees, discovery costs, expert fees, and lawyers' cha…
- litigation privilegeThe protection that shields lawyers and parties from defamation claims founded on statements made in the course of a…
- litigatorA trial lawyer: one who prepares cases for trial by conducting discovery and pretrial motions, tries them, and handle…
- litigiousFond of bringing lawsuits; contentious.
- litis contestatioIn Roman law, the parties' final agreement on the issue to be tried, and the issue so settled. In church law the phra…
- litis denuntiatioIn civil law, the process by which a buyer of land, sued for possession by a third party, notified the seller and cal…
- litis dominiumThe master of the suit: the person who really controls the litigation and stands to gain or lose by it, whoever appea…
- litispendenceThe time during which a lawsuit is pending.
- littoralHaving to do with the shore of an ocean, sea, or lake.
- lituraA blot or erasure in a will or other document.
- live storageThe storing of cars in daily use, as opposed to cars put away for a long period. A garage keeper's responsibility may…
- live thalwegThe part of a river channel most used by traffic, usually running down the middle of the main channel.
- livelihoodA means of supporting oneself, above all financially.
- livelodeLivelihood; the means of maintenance.
- liveryThe handing over of possession of land.
- livery in chivalryThe handing over of possession of land by a guardian to a ward in chivalry once the ward came of age.
- livery of seisinThe old ceremony of conveying land, in which the grantor either handed the grantee a twig, a clod, or a piece of turf…
- livery officeAn office set aside for the formal delivery of lands.
- lives in beingUnder the rule against perpetuities, anyone alive when the future interest is created, whether or not they have any i…
- livingA person's source of support, above all their employment.
- living separate and apartOf spouses, living in different places with no intention of resuming married life. In many states a set period of liv…
- living trustA trust created and taking effect during the settlor's lifetime.
- living willA document, signed with the formalities a will requires, in which a person directs that medical treatment be withheld…
- LL.BBachelor of Laws: once the ordinary law degree in American law schools, and still the usual one in Britain.
- LL.DDoctor of Laws, now commonly an honorary degree.
- LL.JLords Justices: two or more judges of the English Court of Appeal.
- LL.MMaster of Laws: a postgraduate law degree, usually taken after a first degree in law.
- Lloyd'sThe London insurance market, in which individual underwriters and syndicates accept marine and other risks, and which…
- loadAn amount added to a security's price or an insurance premium to cover sales commission and expenses.
- load factorThe ratio between a utility customer's usage over a period and their demand at peak times; also, for a carrier, the n…
- load fundA mutual fund that charges a sales commission, usually between four and nine percent, either when shares are bought o…
- load lineThe depth to which a safely loaded ship sinks in salt water, and the set of graduated marks on her side showing how d…
- loadingIn insurance, the amount added to a life premium to cover the insurer's expenses and contingencies.
- loadmanageThe fee paid to loadsmen, who sail in small boats to pilot larger ships.
- loanThe lending of something for temporary use; also the thing lent, above all a sum of money lent at interest.
- loan associationA financial institution, often organized and chartered much like a bank, whose main business is home-mortgage lending…
- loan brokerSomeone whose business is lending money, usually to individuals, taking as security an assignment of wages or a charg…
- loan certificateA certificate a clearinghouse issues to a borrowing bank for a stated percentage of the value of the collateral that…
- loan commitmentA lender's binding promise to advance a stated sum at a stated rate, usually within a set period and for a set purpos…
- loan for consumptionAn agreement under which the lender hands over goods that the borrower consumes, the borrower being bound to return g…
- loan for exchangeA contract under which the lender hands over goods and the borrower agrees to return similar goods, usually without p…
- loan for useAn agreement under which the lender hands over a thing to be used in its normal way or as agreed, and returned when t…
- loan participationAn arrangement in which several lenders join to make one large loan to a single borrower, so that each carries only p…
- loan ratioThe ratio, usually given as a percentage, between the amount of a mortgage loan and the value of the property securin…
- loan societyA club formed to take deposits from industrial workers and lend to them. Such societies were the forerunners of the A…
- loan valueThe most that can safely be lent on property or on a life policy without leaving the lender exposed if the borrower d…
- loan-amortization scheduleA schedule breaking each loan payment into its interest and principal parts. The interest share starts out largest an…
- loan-brokerage feeThe fee a broker charges for finding a lender and arranging a loan, usually a percentage of the amount borrowed.
- loan-receipt agreementIn tort law, a settlement under which the defendant lends the plaintiff money interest-free, repayable only out of wh…
- loan-to-value ratioThe ratio, usually given as a percentage, between the amount of a mortgage loan and the value of the property securin…
- loaned employeeAn employee whose services are lent, with their consent, to another employer who takes temporary control of the work.…
- loaned servantAn employee whose services are lent, with their consent, to another employer who takes temporary control of the work.…
- loanlandA tenancy created by one person lending land to another.
- loansharkingLending money at excessive, usually usurious, rates, often backed by threats or violence to force repayment.
- lobbyTo press a legislator to vote a particular way, or to work to influence any decision-maker in favor of or against a m…
- lobbying actA statute governing what lobbyists may do, usually by requiring them to register and file reports.
- local actA law confined in its operation to a particular place or district rather than applying throughout the jurisdiction.
- local actionAn action that can be brought only where the cause of action arose, as where the subject matter is a piece of land.
- local agentAn agent appointed to represent someone, especially a company, and do business within a particular district.
- local allegianceThe duty of obedience a person owes the government protecting them. It may be absolute and permanent, as with a citiz…
- local and special legislationLegislation touching only a particular area or a particular class of people. It is unconstitutional if it draws arbit…
- local assessmentA charge for improvements such as sewers or sidewalks in a defined area, levied on the owners whose property will ben…
- local chattelPersonal property so attached to land that it is treated as part of it: a fixture.
- local concernAn activity a municipality carries on in its business capacity rather than as an arm of government.
- local courtA court whose jurisdiction covers only a particular area, such as a state, city, or county court.
- local customA custom followed only in a defined place, such as a city or county, and forming a source of law for that place alone.
- local governmentThe government of a county, city, town, or district, exercising the powers a state has delegated to it over local aff…
- local improvementAn improvement to real property, such as a sewer or a sidewalk, paid for by a special assessment and benefiting the n…
- local lawA law confined in its operation to a particular place or district rather than applying throughout the jurisdiction.
- local optionAn arrangement letting a municipality or other local unit decide a question for itself, without needing the approval…
- local ruleA rule an individual court makes to supplement the procedural rules that apply throughout the jurisdiction, covering…
- local statuteA law confined in its operation to a particular place or district rather than applying throughout the jurisdiction.
- local unionA union acting as the local bargaining unit for a national or international union.
- local usageA practice regularly followed in a particular place, which a court may take into account in reading a document.
- local vetoAn arrangement letting a municipality or other local unit decide a question for itself, without needing the approval…
- local-exchange carrierIn telecommunications law, a company that provides telephone service, usually locally, through a local exchange network.
- local-exchange networkIn telecommunications law, the system that carries local telephone service. It is made up of switches, which direct c…
- local-improvement assessmentA tax on the owners of property in a designated area to pay for improvements such as sewers and sidewalks that benefi…
- localityA definite area: a vicinity, neighborhood, or community.
- locality of a lawsuitThe place where a court may exercise its judicial authority.
- locality ruleThe rule that in a professional-malpractice case the standard of care is that of similar professionals practicing in…
- locality-plus testThe rule that a federal court has admiralty jurisdiction only where the wrong both occurred on navigable water and bo…
- localization doctrineThe rule that a foreign corporation doing enough business in a state thereby subjects itself to that state's laws.
- locatariusA person with whom something is deposited: a depositee.
- locatioIn Roman and civil law, any contract under which the use of a thing, or of someone's labor or services, is given in r…
- locatio custodiaeThe hiring of care or safekeeping, as where the bailee is to look after the thing bailed.
- locatio operarumA contract by which an employer hires a worker to do work on material the employer supplies, for an agreed price.
- locatio operis faciendiThe letting of a job to be done: a contract for work to be performed on material the employer supplies, for an agreed…
- locationThe particular place where a person or thing is, and the act of finding it. In real-estate law it means marking out t…
- locative callsIn land descriptions, the particular calls that fix the boundaries, such as marks, landmarks, or physical objects. Wh…
- locatorIn Roman and civil law, the person who lets something for hire: the bailor or lessor. The word also means a person en…
- locatumA hiring.
- lock rateA mortgage interest rate fixed and guaranteed for a set period while the application goes through.
- lockboxA secure box, such as a post-office box, strongbox, or safe-deposit box; also a service a bank offers for collecting…
- lockdownThe temporary confining of prisoners to their cells during a heightened alert caused by an escape, a riot, or another…
- locked inOf a person, unable to sell securities that have risen in value because of the capital-gains tax that would fall due;…
- locked-in rateA mortgage interest rate fixed and guaranteed for a set period while the application goes through.
- lockoutAn employer's shutting the workplace and withholding work during a labor dispute; loosely, the phrase is also used of…
- lockup optionA takeover defense under which a friendly party may buy parts of a company at a set price once someone acquires a giv…
- loco parentisIn the place of a parent: describing someone who takes on a parent's responsibilities for a child without being the p…
- locum tenensA deputy, substitute, or representative, above all one who holds a post temporarily for another.
- locuplesHaving the means to pay whatever the plaintiff might recover.
- locusThe place where something is done or exists.
- locus delictiThe place where an offense was committed: where the last event needed to make the actor liable occurred.
- locus poenitentiaeA place for repentance: the chance to draw back from a bargain, or from a criminal attempt, before it becomes binding…
- locus regit actumIn international law, the rule that a transaction meeting the legal formalities of the country where it was made is v…
- locus rei sitaeIn civil law, the rule that the place where land lies is the proper forum for a case about it.
- locus sigilliThe place of the seal: the abbreviation marks the spot on a document where the seal goes or would have gone.
- lode claimA mining claim on public land to a well-defined vein embedded in rock.
- lodemanageThe hiring of a pilot to guide a vessel.
- lodestarA guiding star; in fee awards, the reasonable fee in a case, worked out by multiplying a reasonable number of hours b…
- lodgerA person who rents and occupies a room in another's house, or who occupies a designated area there without gaining an…
- loganGoods thrown overboard but tied to a buoy so that they can be found and recovered.
- logbookA ship's or aircraft's journal recording each trip and often the events of the voyage; more generally, any record of…
- logical interpretationReading a text otherwise than by its literal words, on the ground that better evidence exists of what the author real…
- logical positivismA philosophical movement holding that a statement is meaningful only if it can in principle be verified.
- logical-cause doctrineThe rule that once a plaintiff proves an injury and a logical cause of it, a defendant cannot win merely by suggestin…
- logical-relationship standardIn civil procedure, the test for whether a counterclaim is compulsory: whether it arises from the same operative fact…
- logographusIn Roman law, a bookkeeper or public clerk.
- logrollingThe trading of political favors, above all of votes among legislators so that each measure benefiting a member's own…
- LOILetter of intent: a written statement of what parties have provisionally agreed while heading toward a contract. It i…
- loiteringThe offense of lingering in a public place with no apparent purpose. Courts have struck down many loitering statutes…
- lollipop syndromeA pattern in a custody dispute in which one parent supplies the child with treats, presents, and good times while lea…
- London commodity optionAn agreement to buy or sell a futures contract for a commodity traded on the London markets, at a set price and withi…
- Lone Pine orderA case-management order in a mass toxic-tort suit setting procedures and deadlines for discovery, above all requiring…
- longHolding a security or commodity in the expectation that its price will rise; also describing a purchase made with tha…
- long accountAn account covering numerous items or complicated transactions in an equitable action, usually referred to a master o…
- Long ParliamentThe English Parliament summoned by Charles I in 1640, which Cromwell dissolved in 1653, recalled, and finally dissolv…
- long robeThe legal profession, from the long robes its members wore.
- long titleThe full formal title of a statute, usually stating briefly what the legislature meant it to do.
- long tonTwenty long hundredweight, or 2,240 pounds: about 1.016 metric tons.
- long-armHaving to do with, or arising under, a long-arm statute.
- long-arm statuteA statute giving the courts jurisdiction over a non-resident defendant who has had contacts with the state. Most such…
- long-run incremental costIn antitrust law, a cost measure used in testing for predatory pricing: all the costs that, over a period of years, w…
- long-term capital gainThe profit from selling or exchanging a capital asset held longer than a set period, usually a year.
- long-term capital lossThe loss made on selling a capital asset held longer than the period the tax law sets, usually a year.
- long-term debtGenerally, a debt that will not fall due within the coming year.
- long-term securityA newly issued security maturing in ten years or more; on a balance sheet, a security with a year or more still to run.
- longshoremanA dock worker who loads and unloads ships.
- look-and-feel protectionCopyright protection for the images and interface a computer program puts on the screen, as distinct from its underly…
- look-through principleA rule for allocating transfer taxes on real estate by looking past the entity holding legal title to find who really…
- lookoutCareful and vigilant watching.
- loopholeAn ambiguity, gap, or exception in a law or document that lets someone escape a rule while keeping to its literal ter…
- loopificationIn critical legal studies, the collapse of a legal distinction when the two ends of a continuum grow so alike that th…
- loose constructionA reading that applies a text in light of the situation before the court and gives effect to its spirit and purpose.
- looseleaf serviceA lawbook whose pages are replaced periodically with updated ones, designed for a field that changes constantly and g…
- loquelaThe oral exchanges between parties to a suit that narrowed the dispute to an issue, now done by written pleadings; al…
- loquela sine dieThe postponing of an action indefinitely, without a day being set for its return.
- lordA title of honor properly belonging to a baron, but used of anyone holding the rank of a peer.
- Lord AdvocateIn Scots law, the senior law officer of the Crown in Scotland: principal Crown counsel in civil cases, chief prosecut…
- Lord ChamberlainThe second officer of the royal household in England, who is a peer, a privy councillor, and a member of the governin…
- Lord ChancellorA senior minister of the Crown, formerly the highest judicial officer in England, who sat as Speaker of the House of…
- Lord Chief Justice of EnglandThe head of the judiciary of England and Wales and president of the courts, an office that took on those duties from…
- Lord High ChancellorA senior minister of the Crown, formerly the highest judicial officer in England, who sat as Speaker of the House of…
- Lord High StewardThe officer who presided in the House of Lords at the criminal trial of a peer for felony or treason. The peers' priv…
- Lord High TreasurerThe officer once in charge of the royal revenues and customs and of leasing the Crown lands. The office is now put in…
- lord in grossA lord who holds the title in his own right rather than by virtue of a manor.
- Lord Justice ClerkThe second judicial officer of Scotland, with particular responsibility for the criminal law.
- Lord Justice GeneralThe highest judicial officer in Scotland and head of the High Court of Justiciary, who also holds the office of Lord…
- Lord Justice of AppealA judge of the English Court of Appeal.
- Lord KeeperThe officer holding the Great Seal, who authenticates state documents of the highest importance. In England the Lord…
- Lord Keeper of the Great SealThe officer holding the Great Seal, who authenticates state documents of the highest importance. In England the Lord…
- Lord Keeper of the Privy SealThe officer holding the privy seal, who authenticates a state document either before it goes for the Great Seal or wh…
- Lord LieutenantThe sovereign's honorary representative in a county and its principal military officer, an office created to muster t…
- lord mayorThe chief officer of the corporation of the City of London, so called because a charter of Edward III gave the office…
- lord mayor's courtA court of law and equity that heard civil cases arising in the City of London and took appeals from the Chamberlain'…
- Lord of AppealA member of the House of Lords qualified to hear appeals, at least three of whom had to sit: the Lord Chancellor, the…
- Lord of Appeal in OrdinaryA salaried judge appointed to help the House of Lords hear appeals. Such lords ranked as barons for life and continue…
- Lord PresidentThe highest judicial officer in Scotland and head of the Court of Session, who also holds the office of Lord Justice…
- Lord Privy SealThe officer holding the privy seal, who authenticates a state document either before it goes for the Great Seal or wh…
- lord spiritualAn archbishop or bishop who sits in the House of Lords.
- lord temporalA member of the House of Lords who is not a churchman.
- LordsThe House of Lords: the upper chamber of the British Parliament.
- Lords MarchersLords who held land along the Scottish and Welsh borders and governed it, with the Crown's leave, under their own pri…
- lordshipDominion; also an honorary title for a nobleman below the rank of duke, and a customary form of address for a judge o…
- loser-pays ruleThe rule that the losing party must pay the winner's costs and legal fees.
- lossHarm or damage suffered, especially a reduction in value or the disappearance of something of worth.
- loss carrybackA deduction, above all for a net operating loss, applied against income of an earlier year so as to obtain a refund o…
- loss carryforwardA deduction, above all for a net operating loss, that cannot be used up in the year it arises and may be carried into…
- loss carryoverA deduction, above all for a net operating loss, that cannot be used up in the year it arises and may be carried into…
- loss insuranceInsurance bought by someone who may suffer a loss at another's hands, the mirror image of liability insurance, which…
- loss leaderA good sold at a very low price, often below cost, to draw customers in so that they buy other things.
- loss of consortiumThe loss of the benefits one spouse is entitled to from the other, including companionship, help, affection, and sexu…
- loss payeeThe person named in a policy, under a loss-payable clause, to receive the money if the insured property is damaged.
- loss ratioIn insurance, the ratio of losses incurred to premiums received over a period; also a bank's loan losses measured aga…
- loss reserveAn insurer's reserve representing the estimated cost of claims still to be paid, including those incurred but not yet…
- loss-of-bargain damagesCompensation for what a person reasonably expected to gain from a transaction that fell through.
- loss-of-bargain ruleThe rule that damages for breach of contract should put the injured party where they would have been if both sides ha…
- loss-of-chance doctrineA rule in some states allowing a claim against a doctor whose malpractice, though it caused no distinct injury, reduc…
- loss-of-use exclusionA clause in some commercial general liability policies excluding cover for the loss of use of undamaged property caus…
- loss-payable clauseA policy term directing that the proceeds be paid to someone other than the named insured, usually a person holding a…
- lostOf property, out of the owner's possession and not to be found by diligent search; of a person, missing.
- lost cornerA point in a land description, such as a landmark or natural feature, whose position can no longer be worked out from…
- lost earning capacityThe reduction in a person's power to earn caused by an injury, recoverable as damages in a tort action.
- lost earningsWages, salary, or other income a person could have earned but for losing a job, suffering a disabling injury, or dyin…
- lost or not lostIn marine insurance, a clause backdating the cover to a time before the policy was signed, so that it holds good even…
- lost profitsA measure of damages letting a seller recover the profit the sale would have brought had the buyer not broken the con…
- lost propertyProperty the owner has parted with through accident or carelessness and cannot find by an ordinary diligent search.
- lost willA validly executed will that cannot be found when the testator dies. Many states allow its contents to be proved by o…
- lost-chance doctrineA rule in some states allowing a claim against a doctor whose malpractice, though it caused no distinct injury, reduc…
- lost-expectation damagesCompensation for what a person reasonably expected to gain from a transaction that fell through.
- lost-volume sellerA seller who, after a buyer breaks the contract, resells the goods to another buyer who would have bought identical g…
- lotA piece of land, above all one with fixed boundaries or set aside for a particular use.
- lot and scotThe local dues a resident had to pay before qualifying to vote in certain cities and boroughs.
- lot lineA line marking the boundary of a lot, above all one fixed on a recorded plat.
- lotteryA scheme, above all one run by a state to raise revenue, in which tickets are sold and prizes are awarded to the hold…
- love dayA day on which neighbors settled a dispute amicably; also, a day on which one neighbor helped another without payment.
- low diligenceThe small degree of care that even a careless person would take; the least attention the law will accept in situation…
- low justiceA lord's jurisdiction over petty offenses within the manor, as opposed to high justice, which reached the gravest cri…
- low-grade securityA security of low investment quality, which pays a higher return to make up for the greater risk that the issuer will…
- low-water markThe line on the shore marking the edge of the water at the lowest point of the ordinary ebb tide; on a river, the poi…
- lowboteCompensation paid for the death of a person killed in a disturbance or riot.
- lower chamberIn a two-chamber legislature, the larger of the two houses, such as the House of Representatives or the House of Comm…
- lower courtThe trial court or intermediate court a case is appealed from.
- lower estateLand lying at a lower level than a neighbor's, which must receive the natural drainage of water from the higher ground.
- lower-of-cost-or-market methodAn accounting method that values inventory at either its acquisition cost or its current market value, whichever is l…
- loyalFaithful to a person, cause, duty, or government.
- loyaltyFaithfulness or allegiance to a person, cause, duty, or government.
- loyalty oathAn oath promising faithfulness to a particular sovereign or government, usually administered to a senior public offic…
- LRICLong-run incremental cost: the extra cost of providing a service over the long term, used in setting regulated prices.
- LSATA standardized examination meant to gauge the likelihood of success in law school, whose results most American law sc…
- LtdLimited: used in a company's name to show that its members' liability is limited.
- lucidClear and understandable; also rational or sane.
- lucrativa causaIn Roman law, a ground for acquiring something without giving anything in return. A person could not hold the same th…
- lucrativa usucapioIn Roman law, a way of acquiring title to a dead person's land by holding it for a year while the rightful heirs stay…
- lucrativeProfitable. In civil law the word describes something acquired or held without accepting a burden or giving anything…
- lucrative bailmentA bailment for which the bailee is paid, as where a car is left with a parking attendant.
- lucrative officeAn office that yields fees or a salary to its holder, above all one whose pay matches the services rendered and excee…
- lucrative titleTitle acquired without giving anything in exchange, as by gift, inheritance, or devise. Because it usually comes by g…
- lucreMonetary gain; profit.
- lucri causaFor the sake of gain. It was once an essential element of larceny, but today an intent to deprive the owner of the pr…
- lucrumGain or profit; in older English usage the word also meant a small parcel of land.
- lucrum cessansCompensation for a gain that was prevented: damages for profits the claimant would have made but for the wrong.
- lucrum interceptumCompensation for a gain that was prevented: damages for profits the claimant would have made but for the wrong.
- luctuosa hereditasA mournful inheritance: one that upsets the natural order of dying, as when a parent inherits from a child.
- luminarA small lamp or candle kept burning on a church altar, maintained out of lands or rents given for the purpose.
- lump-sum agreementIn international law, a payment one country makes to another to settle in a single sum the claims of the second count…
- lump-sum alimonyAlimony fixed as a single definite sum, which cannot later be varied.
- lump-sum paymentA payment of the whole amount at once, rather than in installments over time.
- lumping saleA court-ordered sale in which several distinct pieces of property are sold together for one price.
- lunacyAn older and now offensive term for mental disorder severe enough to deprive a person of legal capacity and excuse th…
- lunar monthAt common law, a period of 28 days: the time the moon takes to complete one cycle.
- lunch-hour ruleThe rule that an employer is not answerable for injuries suffered or caused by an employee who takes a lunch break aw…
- luxury taxAn excise tax on expensive goods not considered necessities, such as cars costing more than a set amount.
- lying byStanding by in silence at a transaction that affects one's own interests. Courts often treat a person who lay by and…
- lying in waitWatching, waiting, and concealment, with the intent to kill or seriously injure the person watched for. Because it sh…
- lynchTo put a person to death by mob action, without any legal authority.
- lynch lawSummary punishment, above all death, inflicted for an alleged crime without legal authority.
- lytaeIn the later Roman empire, law students in their fourth year of study.