Legal concepts and law terms painstakingly researched and written in plain language.
Introductory note below. If this is a little too smorgasbord for you, we have also prepared specialized legal dictionaries:
The law is often esoteric, eccentric and remote. From time to time, there are movements to simplify the law, usually under the byword of "plain language". However, the task is daunting and likely impracticable given the depth and breadth the law has taken.
At the same time, ignorance of the meaning of a legal word can have grave or very expensive consequences.
Duhaime's Legal Dictionary is designed to offer one-stop shopping to all of us who occasionally need to know what a certain legal word means, because our rights stand to be affected by a reference to it, or because of employment or academic research requirements.
As a lawyer, I write to my professional standards; I want each definition to be lawyer-ready.
Still, all definitions are easy to read and all have been painstakingly researched and written in plain language by lawyer Lloyd Duhaime. In most cases, the definition contains samples of the word used in a law or how it may have been described or used in a law book or a case. Where available or known to the author, HTML links are provided allowing the reader to go directly to the cited case.
We are humbled by the response to the Law Dictionary since it was launched in 1995. Hundreds of other web sites link to it including universities, government departments and libraries. It has also received judicial sanction. Constantly looking for a better product, we believe that this is the best online law dictionary in the world and we want to keep it that way.
Lloyd Duhaime, June 9, 2010