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A lawyer, according to Blacks Law Dictionary, is "a person learned in the law; as an attorney, counsel or solicitor; a person licensed to practice law."Henry Campbell Black, Black's Law Dictionary, 5th ed. (St. Paul: West Publishing Co., 1979), 799. Law is the system of rules of conduct established by the sovereign government of a society to correct wrongs, maintain stability, and deliver justice. Working as a lawyer involves the practical application of abstract legal theories and knowledge to solve specific individualized problems, or to advance the interests of those who retain (i.e., hire) lawyers to perform legal services.

The role of the lawyer varies significantly across legal jurisdictions, and so it can be treated here in only the most general terms.Geoffrey C. Hazard, Jr. & Angelo Dondi, Legal Ethics: A Comparative Study (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2004, ISBN 0-8047-4882-9), 20-23.John Henry Merryman and Rogelio Pérez-Perdomo, The Civil Law Tradition: An Introduction to the Legal Systems of Europe and Latin America'', 3rd ed. (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2007), 102-103. More information is available in country-specific articles (see below).

A barrister is a lawyer found in many common law jurisdictions that employ a split profession (as opposed to a fused profession) in relation to legal representation. In split professions, the other types of lawyers are mainly solicitors. Solicitors have more direct contact with the clients, whereas barristers often only become involved in a case once advocacy before a court is needed by the client. Barristers are also engaged by solicitors to provide specialist advice on points of law. Barristers are rarely instructed by clients directly (although this occurs frequently in tax matters). Instead, the client's solicitors will instruct a barrister on behalf of the client when appropriate.

The historical difference between the two professions?and the only essential difference in England and Wales today?is that a solicitor is an attorney, which means they can act in the place of their client for legal purposes (as in signing contracts), and may conduct litigation by making applications to the court, writing letters in litigation to the client's opponent and so on. A barrister is not an attorney and is usually forbidden, either by law or professional rules or both, from "conducting" litigation. This means that while the barrister speaks on the client's behalf in court, the barrister does so when instructed by a solicitor. This difference in function explains many of the practical differences between the two professions.

Many countries such as the United States do not observe a distinction between barristers and solicitors. Attorneys are permitted to conduct all aspects of litigation and appear before those courts where they have been admitted to the bar.

A judge, or arbiter of justice, is a lead official who presides over a court of law, either alone or as part of a panel of judges. The powers, functions, method of appointment, discipline, and training of judges vary widely across different jurisdictions. The judge is like an umpire in a game and conducts the trial impartially and in an open court. The judge hears all the witnesses and any other evidence presented by the parties of the case, assesses the credibility of the parties, and then issues a ruling on the matter at hand based on his or her interpretation of the law and his or her own personal judgement. In some jurisdictions, the judge's powers may be shared with a jury, although this practice is starting to be phased out in some regions.

Magna Carta, also called Magna Carta Libertatum (the Great Charter of Freedoms), is an English legal charter, originally issued in the year 1215. It was written in Latin and is known by its Latin name. The usual English translation of Magna Carta is Great Charter.

Magna Carta required King John of England to proclaim certain rights (pertaining to freemen), respect certain legal procedures, and accept that his will could be bound by the law. It explicitly protected certain rights of the King's subjects, whether free or fettered ? and implicitly supported what became the writ of habeas corpus, allowing appeal against unlawful imprisonment.

Magna Carta was arguably the most significant early influence on the extensive historical process that led to the rule of constitutional law today in the English speaking world. Magna Carta influenced the development of the common law and many constitutional documents, including the United States Constitution. Many clauses were renewed throughout the Middle Ages, and continued to be renewed as late as the 18th century. By the second half of the 19th century, however, most clauses in their original form had been repealed from English law.

Magna Carta was the first document forced onto an English King by a group of his subjects (the barons) in an attempt to limit his powers by law and protect their privileges. It was preceded by the 1100 Charter of Liberties in which King Henry I voluntarily stated that his own powers were under the law.

In practice, Magna Carta in the medieval period mostly did not limit the power of Kings; but by the time of the English Civil War it had become an important symbol for those who wished to show that the King was bound by the law.

Magna Carta is normally understood to refer to a single document, that of 1215. Various amended versions of Magna Carta appeared in subsequent years however, and it is the 1297 version which remains on the statute books of England and Wales.

English law is the legal system of England and Wales,Jurisdiction Of Courts In England And Wales And Their Recognition Of Foreign Insolvency Proceedings and is the basis of common lawhttp://dictionary.law.com/definition2.asp?selected=248 legal systems used in most Commonwealth countriesThe Common Law in the British Empireand the United States (as opposed to civil law or pluralist systems in other countries, such as Scots law). It was exported to Commonwealth countries while the British Empire was established and maintained, and it forms the basis of the jurisprudence of most of those countries. English law prior to the American revolution is still part of the law of the United States through reception statutes, except in Louisiana, and provides the basis for many American legal traditions and policies, though it has no superseding jurisdiction.

English law in its strictest sense applies within the jurisdiction of England and Wales. Whilst Wales now has a devolved Assembly, any legislation which that Assembly enacts is enacted in particular circumscribed policy areas defined by the Government of Wales Act 2006, other legislation of the U.K. Parliament, or by orders in council given under the authority of the 2006 Act. Furthermore that legislation is, as with any by-law made by any other body within England and Wales, interpreted by the undivided judiciary of England and Wales. Also see below.

The essence of English common law is that it is made by judges sitting in courts, applying their common sense and knowledge of legal precedent (stare decisis) to the facts before them. A decision of the highest appeal court in England and Wales, the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom, is binding on every other court in the hierarchy, and they will follow its directions. For example, there is no statute making murder illegal. It is a common law crime - so although there is no written Act of Parliament making murder illegal, it is illegal by virtue of the constitutional authority of the courts and their previous decisions. Common law can be amended or repealed by Parliament; murder, by way of example, carries a mandatory life sentence today, but had previously allowed the death penalty.

England and Wales are constituent countries of the United Kingdom, which is a member of the European Union. Hence, EU law is a part of English law. The European Union consists mainly of countries which use civil law and so the civil law system is also in England in this form. The European Court of Justice can direct English and Welsh courts on the meaning of areas of law in which the EU has passed legislation.

The oldest law currently in force is the Distress Act 1267, part of the Statute of Marlborough, (52 Hen. 3).Legal oddities Three sections of Magna Carta, originally signed in 1215 and a landmark in the development of English law, are extant, but they date to the reissuing of the law in 1297.

Scots law is a unique legal system which has roots in many different sources of law. Up until the mid-tenth century, the law in Scotland was almost certainly CelticRobinson, Fergus and Gordon, European Legal History, 3rd Edition, OUP, 2000, p155, but after then, feudal and canon law gradually took over. On succeeding to the throne in 1124CE, King David I introduced elements of Anglo-Norman laws and legal institutions, such as sheriffs and justices. Scots law's first known text, Regiam Majestatem, was based heavily on Glanvill's English law treatise, although it also contains elements of civil law, feudal law, canon law, customary law and native Scots statutes. Although there was some indirect Roman law inflence on Scots law, via the civil law and canon law used in the church courts, the direct influence of Roman law was slight up until around the mid-fifteenth centuryRobinson, Fergus and Gordon, European Legal History, 3rd Edition, OUP, 2000 chapter 14. After this time, Roman law was often adopted in argument in court, in an adapted form, where there was no native Scots rule to settle a dispute; and Roman law was in this way partially received into Scots law. Thus comparative law classifies Scots law as a mixed legal system, a group that also contains South African law and the legal systems of Louisiana, Quebec and Puerto Rico. Palmer, Vernon Valentine. Mixed Jurisdictions Worldwide: The Third Legal Family. Cambridge University Press 2001

Since the Acts of Union, in 1707, it has shared a legislature with the rest of the United Kingdom. Scotland retained a fundamentally different legal system from that of England and Wales, but the Union brought English influence on Scots law. In recent years, Scots law has also been affected by European law under the Treaty of Rome, the requirements of the European Convention on Human Rights (entered into by members of the Council of Europe) and the establishment of the Scottish Parliament which may pass legislation within its areas of legislative competence as detailed by the Scotland Act 1998.Sch. 5 Scotland Act 1998

There are substantial differences between Scots Law, English law and Northern Ireland law in areas such as property law, criminal law, trusts law, inheritance law, evidence law and family law while there are greater similarities in areas of national interest such as commercial law and taxation law. Some of the more important practical differences between the jurisdictions include the age of legal capacity (16 years old in Scotland, 18 years old in England)Age of Legal Capacity (Scotland) Act 1991 (c. 50), opsi.gov.uk[http://www.keele.ac.uk/depts/so/youthchron/CivilFamilyLaw/9197civfamlaw.htm "Under Scots Law (in contrast to the law in E&W), young people have full (or 'active') legal capacity at 16 years"], Keele University, the use of a 15 member jury in Scotland rather than the usual 12 members,p. 46 the fact that the accused in a criminal trial does not have the right to elect a judge or jury trial, judges and juries of criminal trials have the "third verdict" of "not proven" available to them,p. 47 Jones, T.H. and Christie, M.G.A. Criminal Law. W. Green & Son Ltd., 2008. and the fact that Equity does not exist in Scots law. Some of the more important practical similarities between the jurisdictions include the similar protections for consumers under the Sale of Goods Act 1979p. 2 Davidson, Fraser and MacGregor, Laura. Commercial Law in Scotland. W. Green & Sons, 2008., very similar treatment under various taxation legislation and similar protections for employees and agents.p. 56 Davidson, Fraser and MacGregor, Laura. Commercial Law in Scotland. W. Green & Sons, 2008.

Category: File - :Uscatitle11.jpg|thumb|right|The United States Code, the codification of federal statutory law

Category: File - :Codeoffederalregulations.jpg|thumb|right|The Code of Federal Regulations, the codification of federal administrative law

Category: Image - :Unitedstatesreports.jpg|thumb|The United States Reports, the official reporter of the Supreme Court of the United States

The law of the United States consists of many levelsSee Stephen Elias and Susan Levinkind, Legal Research: How to Find & Understand The Law, 14th ed. (Berkeley: Nolo, 2005), 22. of codified and uncodified forms of law, of which the most important is the United States Constitution, the foundation of the federal government of the United States. The Constitution sets out the boundaries of federal law, which consists of constitutional acts of Congress, constitutional treaties ratified by Congress, constitutional regulations promulgated by the executive branch, and case law originating from the federal judiciary.

The Constitution and federal law are the supreme law of the land, thus circumscribing state and territorial laws in the fifty U.S. states and in the territories.William Burnham, Introduction to the Law and Legal System of the United States, 4th ed. (St. Paul, MN: Thomson West, 2006), 41. In the unique dual-sovereign system of American federalism (actually tripartite when one includes Indian reservations), states are the plenary sovereigns, while the federal sovereign possesses only the limited supreme authority enumerated in the Constitution. Indeed, states may grant their citizens broader rights than the federal Constitution as long as they do not infringe on any federal constitutional rights.Pruneyard Shopping Center v. Robins, . Thus, most U.S. law (especially the actual "living law" of contract, tort, criminal, and family law experienced by the majority of citizens on a day-to-day basis) consists primarily of state law, which can and does vary greatly from one state to the next.Lawrence M. Friedman, A History of American Law, 3rd ed. (New York: Touchstone, 2005), 307 and 504-505.Graham Hughes, "Common Law Systems," in Fundamentals of American Law, ed. Alan B. Morisson, 9-26 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), 33.

At both the federal and state levels, the law of the United States was originally largely derived from the common law system of English law, which was in force at the time of the Revolutionary War.Hughes, 12.Friedman, 4-5. Professor Friedman points out that English law itself was never completely uniform across England prior to the 20th century. The result was that the colonists recreated the legal diversity of English law in the American colonies. However, U.S. law has diverged greatly from its English ancestor both in terms of substance and procedure, and has incorporated a number of civil law innovations.

Tynwald (), or more formally, the High Court of Tynwald () is the bicameral legislature of the Isle of Man. It consists of the directly elected House of Keys and the indirectly chosen Legislative Council.

The Houses sit jointly on Tynwald Day at St John's, and on other occasions in the Legislative Buildings in Douglas. Otherwise, the two Houses sit separately, with the House of Keys originating most legislation, and the Legislative Council acting as a revising chamber. It has been argued that Tynwald is in fact tricameral because in addition to the two branches sitting separately they also sit as a single body.