Law School

United States corporate law regulates the governance, finance and power of corporations in U S law. Every state and territory has its own basic corporate code, while federal law creates minimum standards for trade in company shares and governance rights, found mostly in the Securities Act of 1933 and the Securities and Exchange Act of 1934, as amended by laws like the Sarbanes–Oxley Act of 2002 an...

A miscarriage of justice, also known as a wrongful conviction, occurs when a person is convicted and punished for a crime that he or she did not actually commit. It can occur in both criminal and civil proceedings, which includes removal proceedings. The main contributing factors are eyewitness misidentification, faulty forensic analysis, false confessions by vulnerable suspects, perjury and lies...

In the United States, strict constructionism is a particular legal philosophy of judicial interpretation that limits or restricts such interpretation only to the exact wording of the law (namely the Constitution).  Strict sense of the term. Strict construction requires a judge to apply the text only as it is written. Once the court has a clear meaning of the text, no further investigation is...

Grounds for divorce are regulations specifying the circumstances under which a person will be granted a divorce. Adultery is the most common grounds for divorce. However, there are countries that view male adultery differently than female adultery as grounds for divorce. Before decisions on divorce are considered, one might check into state laws and country laws for legal divorce or separation as...

HollyFrontier Cheyenne Refining, LLC v Renewable Fuels Association, (2021), was a United States Supreme Court case dealing with exemptions from blending requirements for small refineries set by the Renewable Fuel Standard program. The case dealt with the statutory interpretation of the congressional language for extending the exemption, if this allowed a lapse in the exemption or not. In a 6–3 dec...

A blind trust is a trust in which the trust beneficiaries have no knowledge of the holdings of the trust, and no right to intervene in their handling. In a blind trust, the trustees (fiduciaries, or those who have been given power of attorney) have full discretion over the assets. Blind trusts are generally used when a trust creator (sometimes called a settlor, trustor, grantor, or donor) wishes f...

Probation in criminal law is a period of supervision over an offender, ordered by the court instead of serving time in prison.  In some jurisdictions, the term probation applies only to community sentences (alternatives to incarceration), such as suspended sentences. In others, probation also includes supervision of those conditionally released from prison on parole.  An offender on prob...

Textualism is a formalist theory in which the interpretation of the law is primarily based on the ordinary meaning of the legal text, where no consideration is given to non-textual sources, such as intention of the law when passed, the problem it was intended to remedy, or significant questions regarding the justice or rectitude of the law. Definition. The textualist will "look at the statutory st...

Adultery (from Latin adulterium) is extramarital sex that is considered objectionable on social, religious, moral, or legal grounds. Although the sexual activities that constitute adultery vary, as well as the social, religious, and legal consequences, the concept exists in many cultures and is similar in Christianity, Judaism and Islam. Adultery is viewed by many jurisdictions as offensive to pub...

TransUnion LLC v Ramirez, (2021), was a United States Supreme Court case dealing with standing under Article III of the Constitution related to class-action suits against private defendants. In a 5–4 decision, the Court ruled that only those that can show concrete harm have standing to seek damages against private defendants. Background. Sergio Ramirez had been in the process of purchasing a new c...

An advance healthcare directive, also known as living will, personal directive, advance directive, medical directive or advance decision, is a legal document in which a person specifies what actions should be taken for their health if they are no longer able to make decisions for themselves because of illness or incapacity. In the U.S. it has a legal status in itself, whereas in some countries it...

Parole is the early release of a prisoner who agrees to abide by certain conditions, originating from the French word "parole" ("speech, spoken words" but also "promise"). The term became associated during the Middle Ages with the release of prisoners who gave their word. This differs greatly from pardon, amnesty or commutation of sentence in that parolees are still considered to be serving their...

The purposive approach (sometimes referred to as purposivism, purposive construction, purposive interpretation, or the modern principle in construction) is an approach to statutory and constitutional interpretation under which common law courts interpret an enactment (a statute, part of a statute, or a clause of a constitution) within the context of the law's purpose. Purposive interpretation is a...

Grounds for divorce are regulations specifying the circumstances under which a person will be granted a divorce. Adultery is the most common grounds for divorce. However, there are countries that view male adultery differently than female adultery as grounds for divorce. Before decisions on divorce are considered, one might check into state laws and country laws for legal divorce or separation as...

Minerva Surgical, Inc. v Hologic, Inc was a United States Supreme Court case dealing with the principle of assignor estoppel and its application. The Supreme Court reaffirmed the principle of assignor estoppel, however with the exception that the doctrine is only applied when assignors assertions are actually consistent with previous representations as to the patent. The majority decision was writ...

An inheritance tax is a tax paid by a person who inherits money or property of a person who has died, whereas an estate tax is a levy on the estate (money and property) of a person who has died. International tax law distinguishes between an estate tax and an inheritance tax—an estate tax is assessed on the assets of the deceased, while an inheritance tax is assessed on the legacies received by th...

Life imprisonment is any sentence of imprisonment for a crime under which convicted people are to remain in prison either for the rest of their natural lives or until pardoned, paroled or otherwise commuted to a fixed term. Crimes for which, in some countries, a person could receive this sentence include murder, attempted murder, conspiracy to commit murder, apostasy, terrorism, severe child abuse...

In the context of United States law, originalism is a concept regarding the interpretation of the Constitution that asserts that all statements in the constitution must be interpreted based on the original understanding "at the time it was adopted". This concept views the Constitution as stable from the time of enactment and that the meaning of its contents can be changed only by the steps set out...

Adultery (from Latin adulterium) is extramarital sex that is considered objectionable on social, religious, moral, or legal grounds. Although the sexual activities that constitute adultery vary, as well as the social, religious, and legal consequences, the concept exists in many cultures and is similar in Christianity, Judaism and Islam. Adultery is viewed by many jurisdictions as offensive to pub...

Americans for Prosperity Foundation v Bonta was a United States Supreme Court case dealing with the disclosure of donors to non-profit organizations. The case challenges California's requirement that requires non-profit organizations to disclose the identity of their donors in the state tax returns. The case was consolidated with Thomas More Law Center v Bonta. In July 2021, the Supreme Court rule...

In the law of inheritance, a laughing heir is an heir who is legally entitled to inherit the property of a person who has died, even though that heir is only distantly related to the deceased, and therefore has no personal connection or reason to feel bereaved over the death. In most jurisdictions, the law of intestacy requires that the property of a person who died without leaving a will must fir...

An execution warrant (also called death warrant or black warrant) is a writ that authorizes the execution of a condemned person. An execution warrant is not to be confused with a "license to kill", which operates like an arrest warrant but with deadly force instead of arrest as the end goal. Imprisonment (from imprison, via French emprisonner, originally from Latin prensio, arrest, from prehendere...

The Living Constitution, or loose constructionism, is the claim that the United States Constitution and other constitutions hold a dynamic meaning that evolves and adapts to new circumstances even if the document is not formally amended. The Constitution is said to develop alongside the needs of a society and to provide a more malleable tool for governments. The idea is associated with views that...

Divorce (also known as dissolution of marriage) is the process of terminating a marriage or marital union. Divorce usually entails the canceling or reorganizing of the legal duties and responsibilities of marriage, thus dissolving the bonds of matrimony between a married couple under the rule of law of the particular country or state. Divorce laws vary considerably around the world, but in most co...

Brnovich v Democratic National Committee, (2021), was a United States Supreme Court case related to voting rights established by the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA), and specifically the applicability of Section 2's general provision barring discrimination against minorities in state and local election laws in the wake of the United States Supreme Court decision in Shelby County v Holder in 2013 w...