Law, in general terms, is a system of practices and rules enforced by social or governmental institutions to control behavior and keep order. In more specific terms, it encompasses an array of fields ranging from business transactions to criminal punishment to medical jurisprudence. It incorporates societal and judicial viewpoints on issues of rationality, fairness, morality, and reasons for doing things as well as the concepts of order and honesty.
Law may be made by legislative groups or individual legislators resulting in statutes; by the executive branch of government through decrees and regulations, or established by courts based on precedent (called stare decisis). In addition, legal systems can differ from one country to another, with some adopting the civil law tradition of western Europe and others the common law system of eastern Asia.
In the United States, a legal system is defined by the Constitution, governing documents that set up how our government works and what powers are entrusted to its different branches (legislative, executive, and judicial). Additional laws include criminal and administrative codes, statutory statutes and regulations, and contracts between individuals. Other parts of the legal system include prosecutors and defense attorneys, clerks and paralegals, probation officers, and public defenders who represent defendants who can’t afford their own attorneys in criminal cases. A legal record is the official written account of all acts and proceedings in a lawsuit, such as a court transcript. For more information about law, see citations and links below.