Social Sciences
The formal rules societies enforce, the reasoning used to apply them, and the gap between the two.
13 fields · 130 topics · 124 curated works
How lawyers actually think — a transferable skill.
Foundations & Overviews · Case Analysis · Precedent & Stare Decisis · Statutory Interpretation · Legal Writing
The rules about who makes the rules — how power is divided, what limits it, and who reviews it when it exceeds them.
Foundations & Overviews · Separation of Powers · Judicial Review · Federalism (Legal) · Fundamental Rights
The state's power to punish and its limits — the elements of an offence, the defences, and the procedure that constrains the process.
Foundations & Overviews · Elements of a Crime · Mens Rea · Defences · Homicide
When a promise becomes enforceable, what it is taken to mean, and what follows when it is broken.
Foundations & Overviews · Formation & Offer · Consideration · Terms & Interpretation · Breach & Remedies
Civil wrongs and who pays for them — negligence, causation, strict and product liability, and the line between harm and liability.
Foundations & Overviews · Negligence · Duty of Care · Causation · Strict Liability
Ownership, and what it actually consists of — a bundle of rights over land and things, with trusts, leases and succession attached.
Foundations & Overviews · Real Property · Personal Property · Land Registration · Leases & Tenancy
The legal architecture of business — formation, directors' duties, shareholder rights, and what happens when a company fails.
Foundations & Overviews · Company Formation · Directors' Duties · Shareholder Rights · Securities Regulation
Property rights in things that cannot be possessed: copyright, patents, trademarks, and the licences that govern their use.
Foundations & Overviews · Copyright · Patents · Trademarks · Trade Secrets
Law where enforcement is the hard part — treaties, sovereignty, international courts, and rights asserted against states.
Foundations & Overviews · Sources of International Law · Treaties · State Sovereignty · International Courts
Government agencies and the limits on their power.
Foundations & Overviews · Rulemaking · Judicial Review of Agencies · Licensing & Permits · Environmental Law
The fastest-changing area of practice — data protection, platform liability, and the first serious attempts to regulate AI.
Foundations & Overviews · Data Protection & Privacy Law · GDPR & Comparable Regimes · Platform Liability · Content Moderation Law
What law is, and whether an unjust law is law at all — natural law, positivism, realism, and the theories of punishment behind them.
Foundations & Overviews · Natural Law Theory · Legal Positivism · Legal Realism · Critical Legal Studies
Different legal systems and how they got that way — common law, civil law, Islamic and customary traditions, and what transplants.
Foundations & Overviews · Common Law Tradition · Civil Law Tradition · Islamic Law · Customary Law
No prior grounding assumed.
Why the History of English Law Is Not Written
Frederic William Maitland · 1888
An inaugural lecture arguing English legal history is neglected because lawyers treat old law as worth reading only for what it says about the…
+14 more at this level
Assumes you know the vocabulary.
Free Culture
Lawrence Lessig · 2004
Copyright expanded from a narrow commercial regulation into general control over derivative use, and the cost lands on the culture that follows.
+36 more at this level
Primary sources and full treatments.
The Common Law
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. · 1881
The life of the law has not been logic but experience — doctrine is the residue of history, not a deduction from principle.
+71 more at this level
12 of 124 works
Frederic William Maitland
An inaugural lecture arguing English legal history is neglected because lawyers treat old law as worth reading only for what it says about the present state of the law, not on its own terms.
link checked 17 Sept 2026England and Wales Court of Appeal
Holds that an advertisement offering a reward can constitute a binding unilateral offer accepted by performance, once it is shown to be a genuine promise rather than mere advertising puff.
link checked 17 Sept 2026New York Court of Appeals
Holds that co-venturers owe each other the 'punctilio of an honor the most sensitive', so a partner who secretly renews a joint venture's lease for himself alone must share the opportunity with his partner.
link checked 17 Sept 2026Karl N. Llewellyn
Introduces the case method to new law students, arguing that legal rules only mean anything in light of what courts actually do with them, not their bare verbal formulation.
House of Lords
Holds that a manufacturer owes a duty of care to the ultimate consumer of its product, deriving a general 'neighbour principle' that anyone reasonably foreseeable as harmed by carelessness is owed a duty.
link checked 17 Sept 2026Notes on this copyJohn W. Davis
Effective appellate advocacy before an American court rests on selecting the one or two points that can actually decide the case, not on arguing every point available.
link checked 17 Sept 2026United Nations General Assembly
Sets out, in a single instrument adopted by the community of nations, the civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights held to belong to every person simply by virtue of being human.
link checked 17 Sept 2026C. S. Lewis
Argues that punishing offenders only to cure or deter them, rather than because they deserve it, strips them of the right to be treated as responsible persons and licenses unlimited state 'treatment'.
Earl Warren
Holds that state-mandated racial segregation in public schools is inherently unequal and violates the Equal Protection Clause, overturning the 'separate but equal' doctrine.
link checked 17 Sept 2026Stewart Macaulay
An empirical study of Wisconsin businesses finding that firms usually manage disputes through ongoing relationships and norms rather than by invoking their written contract terms or suing on them.
link checked 17 Sept 2026United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
Holds that photographing a competitor's unpatented plant from a chartered airplane during construction is an improper means of discovering a trade secret, even though no property was trespassed and no confidence was breached.
link checked 17 Sept 2026Christopher D. Stone
Argues American law should grant natural objects like rivers and forests legal standing to sue in their own right through appointed guardians, rather than only through the human interests attached to them.
link checked 17 Sept 2026