law related essays

• PRO Courses Guides New Tech Help Pro Expert Videos About wikiHow Pro Upgrade Sign In
• EDIT Edit this Article
• EXPLORE Tech Help Pro About Us Random Article Quizzes Request a New Article Community Dashboard This Or That Game Popular Categories Arts and Entertainment Artwork Books Movies Computers and Electronics Computers Phone Skills Technology Hacks Health Men's Health Mental Health Women's Health Relationships Dating Love Relationship Issues Hobbies and Crafts Crafts Drawing Games Education & Communication Communication Skills Personal Development Studying Personal Care and Style Fashion Hair Care Personal Hygiene Youth Personal Care School Stuff Dating All Categories Arts and Entertainment Finance and Business Home and Garden Relationship Quizzes Cars & Other Vehicles Food and Entertaining Personal Care and Style Sports and Fitness Computers and Electronics Health Pets and Animals Travel Education & Communication Hobbies and Crafts Philosophy and Religion Work World Family Life Holidays and Traditions Relationships Youth
• Browse Articles
• Learn Something New
• Quizzes Hot
• This Or That Game New
• Train Your Brain
• Explore More
• Support wikiHow
• About wikiHow
• Log in / Sign up
• Education and Communications
• College University and Postgraduate
• Academic Writing

How to Write a Law Essay

Last Updated: August 11, 2023

This article was co-authored by Clinton M. Sandvick, JD, PhD . Clinton M. Sandvick worked as a civil litigator in California for over 7 years. He received his JD from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1998 and his PhD in American History from the University of Oregon in 2013. This article has been viewed 239,963 times.

In a college legal studies course, and in some law school courses, you may be required to write a research paper addressing a legal topic. These essays can be tricky, because the law is constantly evolving. To secure a top grade, your essay must be well-researched and coherently argued. With proper planning and research, you can write a stellar legal essay. [Note: this article does not address how to write law school essay exams or bar exam questions, which require different techniques and strategies.]

Choosing an Essay Topic

• A narrow essay prompt might read, "Discuss the evolution and impact of the exclusionary rule of evidence in the United States." A broad prompt might read, "Discuss how a civil rights movement led to changes in federal and/or state law."
• If you are invited to choose your own topic, your professor may require you to submit a written proposal or outline to ensure that your chosen topic complies with the prompt. If you are not sure if your topic is within the parameters of the prompt, propose your topic to your professor after class or during his or her office hours.

• Hopefully, your course readings, lectures, and class discussions will have given you enough background knowledge to select a topic. If not, review your class notes and browse online for additional background information.
• It is not uncommon to change your topic after doing some research. You may end up narrowing the questions your essay will answer, or changing your topic completely.

• If you can, try to focus on an are of the law that affects you. For example, if your family is involved in agriculture, you may be interested in writing about water use regulations .

Researching Your Topic

• If you are prohibited from citing internet resources, you can still use online research to guide you to physical primary and secondary sources in your local library or bookstore.

• Look at footnotes, citations, and indexes in tertiary sources. These are great for finding books, articles, and legal cases that are relevant to your topic. Also take note of the names of authors, who may have written multiple works on your topic.

• Also find search engines for related fields, such as history or political science. Ask your librarian to recommend specialized search engines tailored to other disciplines that may have contributed to your topic.

• Never cut and paste from the web into your notes or essay. This often leads to inadvertent plagiarism because students forget what is a quotation and what is paraphrasing. When gathering sources, paraphrase or add quotation marks in your outline.
• Plagiarism is a serious offense. If you ultimately hope to be a lawyer, an accusation of plagiarism could prevent you from passing the character and fitness review.

Drafting the Essay

• An effective introduction takes the reader out of his world and into the world of your essay. [2] X Trustworthy Source University of North Carolina Writing Center UNC's on-campus and online instructional service that provides assistance to students, faculty, and others during the writing process Go to source Explain why the subject is important and briefly summarizes the rest of your argument. After reading your introduction, your reader should know what you are going to discuss and in what order you will be discussing it.
• Be prepared to revise your introduction later. Summarizing your essay will be easier after you have written it, especially if you deviate from your outline.

• State each argument of your essay as a statement that, if true, would support your thesis statement.
• Provide supporting information drawn from primary and secondary sources that support your argument. Remember to cite your sources.
• Provide your own original analysis, explaining to the reader that based on the primary and secondary sources you have presented, the reader should be persuaded by your argument.

Formatting Your Essay

Proofreading the Essay

• Open up a Word document. On the Quick Access Toolbar at the top, click on the down arrow. The words “Customize Quick Access Toolbar” will appear when you hover over the arrow for two seconds.
• Click on the arrow. Then click on “More Commands.”
• In the “Choose commands from” drop-down box, choose “All commands.”
• Scroll down to find “Speak.” Highlight this and then click “add.” Then click “okay.” Now the Speak function should appear on your Quick Access Toolbar.
• Highlight the text you want read back to you, and then click on the Speak icon. The text will be read back to you.

• Do not rely on a spell checker exclusively, as it will not catch typos like "statute" versus "statue."

Revising the Essay

• You can share the essay with someone outside of class, but a classmate more likely has the requisite knowledge to understand the subject matter of the essay.

Expert Q&A

You might also like.

• ↑ https://owl.english.purdue.edu/engagement/2/2/53/
• ↑ http://writingcenter.unc.edu/handouts/introductions/
• ↑ https://www.legalbluebook.com/
• ↑ https://support.office.com/en-ca/article/Using-the-Speak-text-to-speech-feature-459e7704-a76d-4fe2-ab48-189d6b83333c

About This Article

To write a law essay, start by writing a thesis statement on your chosen topic. Phrase your thesis statement as an argument, using words like “because” or “therefore” to state your point. Write an outline of the arguments you will use to support your thesis statement, then use that outline to build the body of your paper. Include any counter-arguments, but use your evidence to convince the reader why your point of view is valid, and the counter-arguments are not. Be sure to cite all of your sources in the format preferred by your professor. For tips from our reviewer on finding the best sources for your topic, keep reading! Did this summary help you? Yes No

• Send fan mail to authors

Did this article help you?

Featured Articles

Trending Articles

Watch Articles

• Terms of Use
• Privacy Policy
• Do Not Sell or Share My Info
• Not Selling Info

Get all the best how-tos!

Sign up for wikiHow's weekly email newsletter

• IMC Library
• Library Guides

Legal Method, Research and Writing

• Academic Writing in Law
• Legal Research Basics
• Law Database Guides
• Referencing in Law
• Other Research Resources for Law

Email Ettiquette

THE BASIC RULES

• Don't use an unprofessional email address
• Start with a new e-mail
• Include an appropriate subject heading
• Write a salutation
• Write well!  
• Provide context and background information
• Write a clear and concise message
• Sign your name
• Proofread the e-mail
• Allow adequate time for a reply
• Writing Professional Emails More detailed advice about how to write emails to academic staff

Academic Writing and Research in Law

• UTS Guide to Writing in Law A highly recommended helpful and comprehensive guide to writing law papers.
• Monash University Guide to Writing in Law Law writing guide with helpful Q&A's and tips for planning out case argumentation.
• University of Queensland Legal Research Essentials Introduction to Legal Research by The University of Queensland, Australia

Other Help:

• Quoting, Paraphrasing, Summarising The basic differences in how to writes quotes, how to write paraphrases, and how to write summaries of the sources you find.

Basic Rules

Academic and professional legal writing requires you to develop an argument and demonstrate relationships between the ideas you are expressing. 

Therefore, the ability to express yourself clearly and accurately is important.  Here you will find information to help you improve your writing for any purpose in your law degree.

Academic writing in law is:

Academic writing in law does not:   

Steps to Writing a Law Essay

Throughout your law degree, you will be expected to write a range of different texts, including research essays, responses to problem questions, and case notes.

Not matter the type of text you are asked to produce for an assignment, make sure you follow these steps:

• Plan :  read the questions carefully and think about how you will answer it
• Research :  read, read and read! Make use of everything available to you - don't forget the library!
• Make thorough notes : include all important (and relevant) details and quotes and take note of the source. Make sure you organise your notes so as to make the writing task easier
• Write the first draft :  before you start writing your first draft, refer back to your initial plan and make any necessary changes now you have done your research and gathered your notes. 
• Review and edit :  remember to proofread your work!

The IRAC Method

IRAC is an acronym that stands for: Issue, Rule, Application, and Conclusion. It functions as a methodology for legal analysis and is used as a framework for organising your answer to an essay question in law school.

[ Open All | Close All ]

In legal writing, issues are the core of the essay.

This part of the essay should:

• Identify and state the issue
• Name those involved (plaintiff and defendant) and briefly describe their individual issues
• Work out what body of law may govern the resolution of the issue (e.g. Contract Law)

The rule describes which law applies to the issue. The rule should be stated as a general principle, and not a conclusion to the particular case being briefed.

• Outline the legal principles that will be used to address to the issue
• Source legal principles from cases and legislation

The application is the most important and longest part of your answer. It involves applying the Rule to the facts of the issue and demonstrating how those facts do or do not meet the requirements laid down by the rules. Discuss both sides of the case when possible.

• Explain why the plaintiff's claims are or are not justified
• Identify how the law will be used by the plaintiff and defendant to argue their case
• Use relevant cases and legal principles to support your writing
• Do not try to strengthen your argument by leaving out elements or facts that will hurt it

As with all essays, the conclusion is a statement that identifies your answer to the issue.

• Identify what the result of your argument ir, or what it should be
• State who is liable for what and to what extent
• Consider how the plaintiff and defendant could have acted to avoid this legal issue

Useful Links:

• UWA IRAC Guide This guide from the University of Western Australia offers examples of how the IRAC method can be applied to different cases.
• Law School Survival: The IRAC Method A useful site that presents a detailed outline of the IRAC method as well as skeleton outlines.

Law Writing Media

Additional Resource

Featured Resource

Further Support

Related Guides

Proofreading Tool

• Last Updated: Jan 17, 2024 3:38 PM
• URL: https://top-au.libguides.com/legal-method-research-and-writing

Copyright © 2019 Australian National Institute of Management and Commerce (IMC) Registered Higher Education Provider TEQSA PRV12059 | CRICOS 02491D Top Education Group Ltd ACN 098 139 176 trading as Australian National Institute of Management and Commerce (IMC) All content is subject to change.

How To Write Law Essay?

23 October, 2020

8 minutes read

Author:  Elizabeth Brown

If you are a law student, you have probably already faced the question of how to write an essay on this discipline. This is not an easy task because the requirements for a law essay often differ. In addition, you need to state your position and back it up with arguments clearly for others to understand. And to help you facilitate this process, we offer some preparation tips and tricks so that you could craft a decent work.

First things first, let’s discuss the legal essay scheme. It is rightly similar to the social science essay scheme. In both papers, it is necessary to explain a position on a particular issue or comment on a statement. For university law essay, especially in cases of specialties, it’s more complicated. There are several legal essay types :

• essay on quote explanation . Like in a school essay, the task here is to reveal the meaning of the expression and give a reasoned agreement or disagreement with it.
• essay on legal theory. The essence of this task is to describe one of the theories of law or any jurisprudence. This can be anything – for example, the theory that touches the Fifth Amendment.
• jurisprudence essay. In this assignment, you should review a specific case study or analyze the given document. Here, it’s important to adhere to special structure: first read the case, comprehend it, and only then give a critical account of this or that piece.

Law Essay Outline

The outline is one of the essential parts of law essay writing. At the point of creating it, you should jot down the structure of the main argument for each and every statement you deem appropriate for a text. This way, it’ll be much easier for you to organize the legal paper and facilitate its readability . 

For example, if you need to comment on the quotation, it’s better to start an essay with brief information about the author. Then, consider the meaning of the citation in the context of his time and compare it to current conditions, as well as note whether you agree with the statement or not. Remember – the main task is to have a solid opinion in which you’re 100% confident. If not, switch the quote.

In the essay on legal theory, state the history of the issue, highlight the advantages and disadvantages of the case you are analyzing. Try to draw a parallel with the present, to indicate how relevant it is now for contemporary law students.

While reviewing a specific legal case or document, you should not be distracted by elements irrelevant or unrelated to the subject and give descriptions of similar situations. Consistently assess the actions of subjects or conduct an in-depth analysis of the provided regulation.

Write all of the crucial points in a short plan and shorten the above information into a couple of sentences. Afterward, you’ll be ready to use the crafted outline and write a law essay according to its key points . 

Law Essay Structure

1. Introduction

Like any other type of writing, law essays start with introduction. A successful lead in is the one that captures attention instantly and forces readers to become interested in the law topic. In the beginning, you’ll need to clearly and precisely formulate a thesis statement of the entire piece, which you will then reveal in the following text. A great way to elaborate mediocre introduction with engaging filling is to state a concrete problem, controversy or issue that needs to be resolved.  

2. Main part

This is the main element of the whole legal essay. It should contain an analysis of the quotation, legal theory, specific case, or document. Plus, your opinions about this or that aspect should be argued: for example, by references to other papers or practices. Another beneficial way to develop the main body of your essay is to use specific examples from law classes, including activities and important discussions , if applicable. Also, don’t forget that your law essay should always follow the thesis and develop it throughout the legal paper. This is a critical point to consider, as any departure from the established scheme will distort your work’s content.

3. Conclusion

Your finishing remarks should formulate the outcome of what was written above. A reasonable conclusion should be brief and powerful , as well as connected to the introduction. Besides, a good ending should contain a thesis of the whole law essay. However, don’t try to repeat your thesis word by word. Consider rephrasing it instead of mentioning the same statements so that the information is more easily digested for readers. Plus, you’ll need to provide a critical analysis of your work. For this, explain why your main argument backed up by primary and secondary sources is the highest point of conviction. Hence, your readers will see explicit reasoning and be more inclined to believe the truth you outlined in the paper. 

4. Bibliography

A bibliography is a mandatory part of the work, and also the last one. At the end of your essay, you should list the documents (laws and other regulations) and books that were used in preparation for the article. Works cited page will help you validate the credibility of work and show readers that all statements and opinions are proven with relevant evidence. However, it doesn’t mean that your bibliography ought to be inserted just after you’ve written the entire text. To have a better vision of what source to pick for citing, include the list of used materials before writing the final version of your law essay. Accordingly, you’ll see sources in their entirety and easily cite them whenever needed. 

The sayings of influential and famous people imbue any work with an air of authority . This is especially true for essays on law: professors appreciate it when students reinforce their considerations with the opinion of leaders and experts in their field.

Quotes for an essay on law are quite easy to find on the Internet or specialized digests.

If you choose to close the paper with a quote, it’ll be a great hook which will keep readers impressed by the essay long after they digest it. But feel free to add meaningful sayings also in the introduction or in the middle of a paper. Either way, quotes are a tool that helps make your reading highly impactful and appreciated.  

These were the top advice on how to create a distinct law paper. We hope our advice will help you prepare an interesting and informative essay for college or university studies that’ll be graded with the highest mark. Once you manage to operate on the subtle art of legal essay writing, you’ll adjust to the complexities of its realization without difficulties. If you’re in doubt questioning your writing abilities, use custom essay writer service – we will create the best law essay tailored specifically for you.

A life lesson in Romeo and Juliet taught by death

Due to human nature, we draw conclusions only when life gives us a lesson since the experience of others is not so effective and powerful. Therefore, when analyzing and sorting out common problems we face, we may trace a parallel with well-known book characters or real historical figures. Moreover, we often compare our situations with […]

Ethical Research Paper Topics

Writing a research paper on ethics is not an easy task, especially if you do not possess excellent writing skills and do not like to contemplate controversial questions. But an ethics course is obligatory in all higher education institutions, and students have to look for a way out and be creative. When you find an […]

Art Research Paper Topics

Students obtaining degrees in fine art and art & design programs most commonly need to write a paper on art topics. However, this subject is becoming more popular in educational institutions for expanding students’ horizons. Thus, both groups of receivers of education: those who are into arts and those who only get acquainted with art […]

Application Components

A comprehensive and holistic review.

At Yale Law School, our goal is to enroll a talented, diverse, and engaged entering class each fall. Each application is comprehensively and holistically reviewed to ensure that we thoughtfully consider all of the information that you provide to us. No one factor is dispositive. Instead, the Admissions Committee carefully evaluates each component of every application, including your essays, letters of recommendation, extracurricular activities and leadership, honors and awards, professional experiences, and background. We do not utilize a GPA or standardized test score cutoff of any kind in our review process.

Every year applicants from all backgrounds and with scores in all ranges are admitted to Yale Law School. The only guarantee you will not be admitted is if you do not apply, and we take seriously every application we receive.

The below application components were updated as of August 2023.

Section Menu

Application Fee & Need-Based Fee Waivers

Applications must be accompanied by a non-refundable $85 application fee, which will not be credited to tuition in the event of admission. The application fee is waived automatically for those applicants who have received an LSAC fee waiver.

If you do not have an LSAC fee waiver and would like to request a need-based fee waiver of your Yale Law School application fee, please request a fee waiver using our online application . Need-based fee waivers are generously granted, and parental information is not requested as part of the fee waiver application. If your request is approved, you will be given a fee waiver code to enter during the submission process for your Yale Law School application.

Please note that neither the request for, nor the granting of, a need-based fee waiver has any bearing on admissions decisions. Yale Law School employs a need-blind admissions process and encourages applicants from all socio-economic backgrounds to apply.

Undergraduate Degrees & Academic Transcripts

You must receive, or expect to receive, by the summer of 2024 a bachelor's degree (or the equivalent) from an approved undergraduate institution in order to be eligible to apply. All offers of admission are contingent upon graduation.

You must submit to LSAC transcripts from each college or university you attended, including all schools you attended for graduate or professional study. Even if one school includes summary data regarding courses from another school on its transcript, an official transcript from each institution must be submitted. Yale Law School strongly encourages applicants to submit transcripts, through LSAC, reflecting all coursework completed through the time of application and further encourages applicants to submit updated transcripts as additional coursework is completed. We suggest that you allow at least six weeks for a transcript to be processed by LSAC. For detailed instructions, please visit the LSAC transcript webpage .

In light of the circumstances posed by COVID-19, Yale Law School recognizes that transcripts may reflect mandatory or optional pass/fail or credit/no credit grades. These grades will not be viewed negatively by the Admissions Office and the Law School will maintain a holistic review process for all applications.

Personal Statements

Applicants must submit a personal statement that helps us learn about the personal, professional, and/or academic qualities they would bring to the Law School community and the legal profession. Applicants often submit the personal statement they have prepared for other law school applications.

Personal statements should be approximately two double-spaced pages.

250-Word Essays

The Law School is a vibrant intellectual community where students are expected to engage academically with faculty and fellow students. In no more than 250 words, applicants must write about an idea or issue from their academic, extracurricular, or professional work that is of particular interest to them. The idea or issue you choose does not have to be law-related; this is an opportunity for readers to learn more about how you would engage intellectually in the Law School community.

Optional Essay

Applicants may choose to submit an essay in response to one of the four questions below, each related to a value that is central to the Law School community. This is an opportunity to provide readers with relevant information that may not be found elsewhere in your application. If you choose to answer one of these questions, your essay should focus on your relevant personal, professional, and/or academic experiences and not on specific reasons why you wish to attend Yale Law School.

The optional essay should be approximately one page double-spaced. The prompts for the optional essay are as follows:

• Option 1: The Law School has a strong tradition of public service and encourages its students to contribute to the community in a wide variety of ways. Describe a community that has been particularly meaningful to you. Discuss what you have gained from being a part of this community and what you have contributed to this community.  
• Option 2: The Law School encourages its students and alumni to be leaders, innovators, and changemakers across many different sectors. Describe one of your most important accomplishments and explain why it is important to you. Discuss how you demonstrated leadership, helped innovate, and/or drove change as part of that accomplishment.  
• Option 3: The Law School values determination and resilience and recognizes that these traits are critical to success at the Law School and in the legal profession. Describe a significant challenge, disappointment, or setback that you have faced. Discuss how you approached this experience and what you learned from it.  
• Option 4: In order to succeed at the Law School and in the legal profession, you must be able to have discussions across difference and be open to changing your mind. Describe a time when you changed your mind on an important topic after discussing it with a person with whom you disagreed or learning additional information. Discuss what you learned from this experience.

Applicants may submit addenda to their application if any are necessary for a full representation of their candidacy. These addenda may include, for example, explanations related to transcripts or test scores, including a history of under-performance on standardized tests. It is not necessary to include any addenda, and many applicants do not include any.

Letters of Recommendation

Yale Law School requires at least two letters of recommendation. We strongly prefer letters from at least two professors with whom you have studied who can speak to your academic performance and who have had a chance to personally evaluate significant aspects of your academic work. Letters from employers, college deans, coaches, chaplains, colleagues, and others may be helpful, but are not preferred. If possible, they should not replace letters from two faculty recommenders.

Applicants who have been out of school for some time or who are otherwise unable to obtain two faculty recommendations may substitute letters from employers or others who know them well. These letters should address the qualities that academic recommendations typically address, for example: the applicant's ability to write and think critically, as well as their overall suitability for the study and practice of law.

A tip sheet for your recommenders can be found  here .

All letters of recommendation must be transmitted through the LSAC Letter of Recommendation Service , which is included as part of your CAS subscription.

We will begin review of your application as soon as we have received two letters of recommendation. We will not hold your application in order to wait for additional letters. To ensure that all of your recommendations are available for consideration, please verify that they are on file with LSAC prior to applying to the Law School.

Activities Sections

Applicants are required to submit a statement of activities to help us understand what you did during your undergraduate education and after graduation (if applicable). 

The college activities section asks three questions: 1) what you did during those terms when you were not in school, including summers and any other terms off (e.g., employment, internships, or study abroad); 2) what you did during the terms while you were also taking classes (e.g., extracurricular activities, employment, or internships); and 3) a catch-all question where you may briefly describe any other activities that you consider relevant (e.g., a significant thesis or capstone project, or significant personal or familial responsibilities). While you may choose to do this in a variety of formats, we ask that you do so in a structured manner such as a list or chart.

If it has been more than three months since you attended college, you must also describe what you have been doing since graduation in any format you choose. You should include graduate or professional education, paid or unpaid employment, as well as any other activities that you consider relevant. You may respond in a narrative format if you have only one or two activities. If you have more than a few activities, we ask that you format your response in a structured manner such as a list or chart.

The activities in these sections should be listed in order of their relative importance to you. For each activity, you must provide a brief description, state the approximate start and end dates, estimate the weekly hourly commitment, and note whether the activity was paid or unpaid. Please note that we anticipate significant duplication between these sections and your résumé. These sections should be brief, and, in general, applicants should answer the college activities questions in no more than 1–2 pages and the post-college activities question in no more than one page. 

Standardized Tests

Yale Law School accepts results from the  Law School Admission Test (LSAT) and the Graduate Record Examinations (GRE) General Test . Additionally, the Law School accepts results from the  LSAT-Flex and the GRE General Test at Home . We do not have a preference among these standardized tests. However, you may submit score(s) from one standardized test only. If you have a reportable LSAT score, you may not submit a GRE score for consideration.

If you choose to apply with the LSAT, you must take the LSAT no later than January 2024. LSAC automatically reports all LSAT scores from the past five years. The oldest LSAT score we will accept is June 2018. If you have taken the LSAT since June 2018, you do not have the option to not report your score(s) to the Law School—your score(s) will be included in the information that we receive in your CAS report from LSAC.

LSAC requires at least one LSAT writing sample, taken either at the time of the LSAT examination or via LSAT Writing , in order to generate your CAS report. Yale Law School requires only one LSAT writing sample. Applicants who take the LSAT more than once do not need to submit multiple writing samples. It may take up to three weeks for LSAC to process and report your LSAT Writing. Therefore, you should complete your LSAT Writing no later than January 25, 2024 to ensure we receive it by Yale Law School’s application deadline.

If you choose to apply using the GRE General Test, we must receive your GRE scores from the Educational Testing Service (ETS) by our application deadline, February 15, 2024. Because it may take up to 15 calendar days for ETS to transmit your scores once you complete the exam, you should take the GRE no later than February 1, 2024. Applicants who have taken the GRE can log into their ETS accounts and select Yale Law School as a recipient of GRE results using the school code 4542.

To maintain parity between our evaluation of LSAT and GRE results, applicants who apply using the GRE must submit all GRE scores from the past five years. When reporting your GRE scores to Yale Law School, please select the option to report your entire testing history. Selecting this option will report all of your GRE scores for the past five years. Additionally, please ensure that the GRE score report submitted with your application is generated on or after the date you submit your Yale Law School application. A failure to comply with these policies may prevent the review of your application or result in the withdrawal of an offer of admission.

Dean's Certification

Yale Law School does not require submission of a dean's certification form(s) as part of the initial application. In the event an offer of admission is extended to you and you choose to accept that offer, you will be required to submit a dean's certification form from each college or university degree program in which you are, or have been, enrolled, regardless of whether a degree was awarded. The dean's certification form and a complete set of instructions will be provided to admitted students.

All offers of admission are contingent upon the satisfactory completion of the dean's certification requirement. Discrepancies between an applicant's answers to the questions in the Character and Fitness section of the admission application and the information provided in dean's certification forms will be considered sufficient grounds for the revocation of an offer of admission.

Interview Program

Yale Law School will continue piloting an interview program it began in the 2022-2023 application cycle. A small number of applicants will be selected for interviews as part of the evaluation process. If you are selected for an interview, the Admissions Office will contact you with additional information. Your application will not be disadvantaged if you are not selected for an interview.

What are your chances of acceptance?

Calculate for all schools, your chance of acceptance.

Your chancing factors

Extracurriculars.

College Application Essay Tips for Aspiring Lawyers

This article was written based on the information and opinions presented by Alexander Oddo in a CollegeVine livestream. You can watch the full livestream for more info.

What’s Covered:

Describe your reasons why, career goals, the personal statement.

Your aspirations are an important component of what makes you who you are, and if you aspire to become a lawyer, you should share this information with any college or university that you apply to. In the college application process, essays are the best opportunity for you to discuss your passion for the law and your interest in becoming a lawyer. You may incorporate your legal aspirations into your personal statement or they may form the backbone of your supplemental essays where you respond to questions about why you are interested in a particular school, program, or major.

Generally speaking, a smart way to approach your essays is to introduce your interests and connect them to specific personal stories and goals. As a person who aspires to be a lawyer, you want to introduce your interests that relate to the law and describe what attracts you to the legal field. What is it about studying the law and becoming a lawyer that you find most compelling? Why does this path feel meaningful and necessary to you? Draw on specific experiences in your life and lessons you have learned to formulate your rationale for pursuing this career path. 

When you explain why you aspire to be a lawyer, be as specific as possible. “ Lawyers help people. The legal profession is lucrative.” These reasons are too simplistic and generic to provide any useful insight for an admissions officer to understand who you are. If you want to become a lawyer, you should explain your motivation to pursue this career path in terms of: 

• Why you want to help others and who you want to help, such as immigrants or victims of domestic violence
• What areas of the law interest you, such as tax law, family law, or corporate law
• What it is about studying and practicing law that appeals to you intellectually, such as that you have an analytical mind and enjoy solving complex problems
• What disciplinary perspectives you find interesting in relation to the law, such as history, philosophy, political science, public policy, or criminology 
• What experiences you have had and people you have met that have inspired you to pursue a legal career. Any experiences you cite should extend beyond your favorite episode of “Law and Order” or “How to Get Away with Murder.” Maybe a movie or TV show about the law initially sparked your interest, but then you developed this interest into an enduring passion by volunteering at your local courthouse, joining your high school’s mock trial team, or becoming certified as a paralegal. 

After you have thoroughly explained why you are interested in becoming a lawyer, you should look to the future and discuss your career goals. Identify a specific area of the law that you want to practice, and ground this in the various reasons why you want to become a lawyer. It is completely fine if you are not entirely sure what area of law you want to practice. Regardless, the winning strategy is to pick a specific area of law that you want to pursue and cite this consistently throughout your college applications. It will allow you to construct an application that is specific, developed, and memorable rather than overly general, unfocused, and potentially forgettable.

Ultimately, colleges and admissions officers will not hold you accountable for matching the goals and plans you outline in your essays. You are free to start college and decide that you don’t want to pursue a legal career at all. You should know before you apply to and attend law school whether you want to practice law, but undergraduate institutions recognize that you are young and still trying to explore your interests and define your goals. If you do pivot, admissions officers will rest assured because they know you have been through the process of creating a goal and that you can go through this process in any field you choose. 

If you are applying to a school that does not have any supplemental essays as part of its application, then you should discuss your legal aspirations in your Common Application personal statement. Your personal statement is the place in your application where you share your personal story, and you should tell this story in such a way that you weave your past, present, and future together. When you discuss your future, include some information about your interest in becoming a lawyer, drawing connections between this goal and your past experiences and present endeavors that inform and relate to your aspirations.

For more information, review this comprehensive guide on How to Write the Common Application Essays for the 2022-2023 application cycle.

Related CollegeVine Blog Posts

190 Unique Law Research Topics for Students to Consider

Table of Contents

If you are a law student, then obviously as a part of your studies you must write an excellent academic paper on any top law research topics. Right now, do you want to write a brilliant law research paper? Are you searching for the best law research topic ideas? If yes, then continue reading this blog post and get interesting law topics for your academic writing.

Law Research Paper Writing

A law research paper is a type of research paper that focuses on any legal topic in the world. The legal topics are nothing but the topic that deals with the legal issues that are resolved in the court.

In general, every country will have its own legal regulations and policies. More commonly, the basic rights and humanity will be the same for all the countries in the world, but specifically, you need to consider the cultural and historical peculiarities of a country while writing a law research paper.

Remember, the law is a sensitive subject and hence, when writing legal research papers, utmost care should be given. You shouldn’t add too much philosophy to it. Your research paper should answer your law essay topics properly with pure black-and-white facts.

You may think that writing a law research paper is easy. But actually, it is not. For writing an intense legal research paper, you must have a unique legal research topic. Particularly, when writing law papers, you should first research and find the legal questions relevant to your topic, analyze the various legal precedents, and present the answer to your legal question in the form of a memo by properly citing all the sources you have used for references.

Law Research Paper Topic Selection Tips

If you want to write a law research paper, then a good law research topic is what you need. Basically, the law is a complex subject, and hence choosing the right research topic from them is challenging. While selecting the legal research topic, be sure to keep the following tips in mind.

• Your topic should not be too broad.
• It should be informative to your audience.
• The topic should be catchy and relevant to modern law.
• It should contain relevant supporting materials online or in local libraries.
• The topic should deal with relevant legal precedents.
• It should answer all the legal essay questions.
• Your topic should have real-life cases to illustrate your points.

List of the Best Law Research Paper Topics

Law is a popular discipline among humanitarian sciences that have a wide range of research areas. Some common law research areas include business law, commercial law, environmental law, international law, medical law, constitutional law, cyber law, family law and so on.

As law is a broad subject with endless research topics, it might be difficult for you to choose the most interesting idea from them. So, to make things easier, we have sorted different categories of law and listed some outstanding law research topics for you.

Have a look at the below-mentioned list of law research paper topic ideas and identify aprofound legal research topic of your choice.

Business Law Research Topics

• What’s the true nature of business law?
• Equity and the doctrines of business law
• Morality and its relation to business law
• Business laws and the parliament
• The formulation of business regulations in Islam
• Why are business regulations essential for institutions and organizations?
• Business laws in Africa
• How crucial is the constitution for the creation of business law?
• Business law as a profession
• The classification of the business regulations
• Describe the Law of Contracts in the United States
• Discuss the fundamentals of UK contract law for businesses
• Critical evaluation of the role of the judiciary bodies in corporate law
• Disclose an insight into contract laws with respect to the application of verbal and non-verbal agreements
• Importance of collective bargaining agreements and laws on labor relations
• How to deal with corruption in business law?
• Discuss the difference between the EU and the UK after the implementation of the Brexit Contract Law
• Discuss the protections provided to the minority shareholders in the corporate law regime of India
• Compare and contrast the legal aspects of corporate M&A (mergers and acquisitions) in the United States and Australia
• Analysis of the role of the Federal Trade Commission’s Bureau of Competition in regulating the anti-competitive practices in the market
• Compare and contrast the legal aspects of e-commerce in the US and the UK
• Critical analysis of the role played by the Arbitration and conciliation act in resolving business disputes
• Compare and contrast the company law act in Australia and Canada
• Discuss how anti-money laundering laws of a country impact businesses
• Describe the implications of digital payment systems

Commercial Law Research Paper Topics

• What are the dangers and potential results of commercial partnerships?
• A comprehensive analysis of pre-incorporation contracts: How do they work?
• Reviewing the use of international commercial law in energy projects across the globe.
• Assessing the mediating role of corporate social responsibility in companies’ performance.
• Evaluating the commercial laws that should be used against dishonest managers.
• Reviewing the US commercial laws: What should be changed or added?
• Evaluating the regulations aimed at stopping corruption: A case study of the UK.
• Reviewing the implications of international commercial law in UK commercial laws.
• Assessing the effectiveness of international commercial law programs in UK universities.
• Evaluating the effectiveness of commercial law to support commercial transactions in the US.
• Critical analysis of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act
• Discuss the benefits of Commercial Law
• Analyze the difficulties faced by businesses due to pursuing Regular or Commercial Lease
• Describe the effect of business law on commercial transactions and licensing
• Critical analysis of the labor law in Tanzania
• Develop a comparative study on international labor standards that regulate multinational companies in developing countries

Constitutional Law Research Topics

• The Internet and its impact on Free Speech
• The pros and cons of federalism
• What’s the freedom of the press?
• The desecration and flag burning
• A comparison between constitutions and state laws
• What are the rights of victims of self-incrimination?
• The pros and cons of Constitutionalism
• All about gun control and its history in the US
• What are the key changes that the First Amendment has brought?
• What changes did the Bill of Rights bring?

Criminal Law Research Topics

• Why does one crime have a set of different punishments?
• The roots of criminologists’ work and their work in modern times
• Can sociology have an impact on preventing crime?
• The ethical and legal issues related to criminal activity in your country.
• The real truth behind domestic violence
• What is quantitative criminology, and how does it differ from other types of crime?
• When does the international criminal court come into play?
• Analyzing the use of lie detectors in criminal justice: How effective are the lie detectors?
• A deeper look at the history of the death penalty.
• The key differences between male and female rape legislation
• Evaluating crime-related factors that should not be presented in a court of law.
• A thematic review of criminal theory: Exploring the link between crime and morality.
• What are the best ways to protect witnesses from retaliation in criminal cases?
• Is criminal profiling by law enforcement truly helpful in identifying serial killers?
• How does the criminal justice system keep an eye on police with body cameras?

Read more: Criminal Justice Research Topics Idea for students

Research Topics on Family Law

• Evaluating the impacts of the law on divorce: Has it increased the cases of divorce or reduced them?
• Review the important implications and reasons for changes to family law in the last 20 years.
• Assessing the factors that hinder couples from pursuing a divorce.
• The global issues and legal aspects of marriage and divorce of mentally unstable individuals.
• Explore divorce and social consequences across family law and religious perspectives.
• Analyze the legal foundations of parenting and civil partnerships.
• Assessing human rights in states that follow religious laws for families: A case study of India.
• Compare the divorce rights for women in Pakistan and the UK.
• How does culture impact decision-making on transgender marriages and divorce in the US?
• Evaluating the compatibility of child justice with family justice: A case study of the UK.

Cyber Law Research Topics

• The main cyber laws and enforcement today
• What are the skills of an excellent cyber lawyer?
• How can the government impact cyberterrorism?
• Cybercrime and cyberterrorism
• The penalties for cybercrime
• All about private data, revenge porn, blackmailing, and our internet privacy
• Is it the government’s job to analyze the flow of network traffic?
• Cyberlaw trends and how the online community sticks to them.
• The Internet Era and identity theft: Is it a crime of modern times?
• Categories of cybercrime and the main cybersecurity strategies against violators.

Read more: Interesting Cybercrime Research Topics To Deal With your paper

Research Ideas on Environmental Law

• The environmental influence on the rate of crime
• How has global environmental law changed today?
• The importance of environmental law for the health of current generations.
• Biological weapons and their regulations by international environmental law.
• Will the Uber industry impact the ecology in America?
• The current environmental regulations in the United States
• Sustainability and environmental compliance due to environmental law and economic reality.
• All about the environmental regulations in Canada
• Waste management in countries with a high economic level.
• Environmental law in Australia and climate change

Employment Law Research Topics

• A comprehensive review of employment contracts and job contracts in the US manufacturing industry.
• A legal viewpoint of employee mobility between European Union countries.
• Equal employment opportunities: Comparing gender differences in the UK and US regulations.
• Compare the UK laws before and after exiting the European Union.
• Reviewing legal perspectives of social work employment: A case study of California, USA.
• A comparative analysis of employment laws in the automotive industry in the US and UK.
• Analyze the impact of trade unions and their work in the UK.
• The convergence of employment laws and religion in the USA: A literature review.
• Evaluating the efficiency of workplace sexual harassment: A case study of the US and UK.
• A critical evaluation of the employment law of disabled individuals in the US.

Law Research Topics on Intellectual Property

• Evaluating laws for intellectual property rights protection on the internet.
• A comprehensive assessment of the economic impacts of intellectual property rights
• Evaluating the fair dealing in terms of copyright law: A case study of the US.
• How has EU law impacted the intellectual property regime in the UK?
• Can the emerging technological advancements operate smoothly with the current intellectual property laws in the US?
• Demystifying the relationship between intellectual property laws and EU regulations?
• Comparing and contrasting the intellectual property regimes in the UK and the US.
• Evaluating the implications of Brexit on the protection of intellectual property rights in the UK.
• Is the EU intellectual property law safe and fair for users and owners?
• Does the EU copyright law provide ample balance between the needs of inventors and users?
• Comparison of the institutions and regulations governing intellectual property in China and India
• An in-depth analysis of the UK’s invention and patenting system: Can the existing, rigid system stimulate innovation?
• Critical analysis of the development of copyright and moral rights in the legal system of Europe
• Infringement of foreign copyright and jurisdiction of the European Court
• Critical analysis of the economic rationale of Trademarks
• Analyze the emerging role of patents in innovation and intellectual property protection in the software industry
• Peer-to-Peer Technology: Analysis of contributory infringement and fair use
• Trademark protection is and ought to be the need of businesses to protect their brand value: Explain
• What do fair pricing and fair dealing with copyright regulations mean?
• Trade-Related Aspects of IP Rights: A Workable Instrument for Enforcing Benefit Sharing

International Law Research Paper Topics

• The principles used to formulate international criminal laws.
• Ethical systems and international relations
• Problems of code-based ethics
• How do different countries deal with false confessions?
• Different treatment of terrorism as a crime in different countries
• Diplomats and their protection of international morality.
• Did the US involvement in Iraq provide justice or violate the law?
• Laws on mental health in different countries
• The issues of traditional justification
• The question of ethics in the international legal context.
• International Human Rights Court Hearings: Evaluating the importance of precedence.
• What are the problems of enforcing international law in developing countries?
• Evaluating the efficiency of International Tribunals in solving war crimes.
• Digital and internet legislation: Forecasting the future.
• Assessing the relationship between public safety and civil liberties in international laws.

Medical Law Research Topics

• The common law towards refusal of medical treatment.
• Evaluating the laws governing organ transplantation: A case study of the US .
• How do ethics and medical law coexist?
• Ethics and Medical Laws in World War II
• Law application in medicine: Exploring the antecedents and practice.
• Evaluating the ethical and legal challenges of using biobanks.
• Exploring the legal aspects of electronic fetal monitoring.
• How do lawsuits affect medical practitioners’ commitment to offering lifesaving treatments?
• Unregistered medical intervention in the UK: What are the legal implications?
• Morality and law in the abortion debate.
• In accordance with international environmental law, biological weapons are prohibited.
• Will the Uber industry have an impact on American ecology?
• United States environmental laws are in effect today.
• Due to environmental legislation and economic reality, sustainability, and environmental compliance.
• anything about Canadian environmental laws.
• evaluating aspects of crime that shouldn’t be discussed in court.
• What are the best strategies for shielding witnesses in criminal cases from reprisals?
• A more thorough examination of the death penalty’s past
• Examining the connection between crime and morality is the focus of this examination of criminal theory.
• A case study of London’s examination into the difficulties in determining the type and distribution of crime.

A Few More Medical Law Research Ideas

• How to balance the rights of defendants and victims when using anonymity in sexual offense litigation.
• Slavery, prostitution, and human trafficking. the methods used globally to eradicate it.
• Is identity theft a modern-day crime? prevention of identity theft in the post-Internet era.
• criminality and psychology. Are some people more likely than others to breach the law?
• Social control theory against the self-control hypothesis
• False confessions and how they are handled in various nations.
• The environment’s impact on crime rates is one of the theories behind shattered windows.
• Similarities and disparities between mental diseases and crime in various nations.
• education, criminal behavior, and intelligence.
• From the beginning to the present, criminologists’ fieldwork.
• How does quantitative criminology differ from other types of crime? What is it?
• When is the use of the international criminal court appropriate?
• Examining the effectiveness of lie detectors in the criminal justice system:
• A more thorough investigation of the death penalty’s past.
• The main distinctions between male and female rape laws
• Assessing criminal-related variables that shouldn’t be brought up in court.
• What effects has EU law had on the UK’s system of intellectual property?
• Can the advancing technologies coexist peacefully with the US’s current intellectual property laws?
• Explaining the connection between EU rules and intellectual property laws?

Trending Law Research Topics

• Discuss the role of genetics in criminal justice proceedings.
• Write about the recent changes in tax laws and their impact on India.
• Differences between state and federal regulations regarding gun control.
• Discuss the growing influence of artificial intelligence on the legal profession.
• Explain the role of technology in criminal trials.
• Analyze international human rights policies.
• Write about the Freedom of expression and censorship issues.
• Discuss the Legal issues related to school safety and security.
• Analyze the regulation of online gaming platforms from a legal perspective.
• Write about the Legal implications of celebrity endorsements.

Wrapping Up

In order to get top grades for your law research paper, a peculiar topic is mainly needed. Especially, by choosing an idea from the list of 150+ law research topics suggested in this blog post, you can write a top-quality academic paper and make your work stand out in the crowd. In case you find it difficult to write a legal research paper, then immediately reach out to us for professional  Law assignment help . We have a team of academic writers who are experts in the field of law to assist you in completing your law research paper on any impressive topic as per requirements.

Simply, book your order and get an original law research paper beyond your expectations.

Related Post

220 Amazing Religious Research Paper Topics and Ideas

Read and Understand How to Write a Research Proposal

100+ Controversial Research Topics and Ideas to Focus On

About author.

Jacob Smith

I am an Academic Writer and have affection to share my knowledge through posts’. I do not feel tiredness while research and analyzing the things. Sometime, I write down hundred of research topics as per the students requirements. I want to share solution oriented content to the students.

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

• Featured Posts

140 Unique Geology Research Topics to Focus On

200+ outstanding world history topics and ideas 2023, 190 excellent ap research topics and ideas, 150+ trending group discussion topics and ideas, 170 funny speech topics to blow the minds of audience, who invented exams learn the history of examination, how to focus on reading 15 effective tips for better concentration, what is a rhetorical analysis essay and how to write it, primary school teacher in australia- eligibility, job role, career options, and salary, 4 steps to build a flawless business letter format, get help instantly.

Raise Your Grades with Assignment Help Pro

• Call to +1 (844) 889-9952

Getting law essay help is easy! Submit your task, and our expert will take care of it. You will get the result 100% on time.

Enhance Your Law Studies with Us

Get inspired by our free law essay examples. Criminology, criminal justice, legal ethics – all the related topics are covered here!

All-in-One Academic Assistance

24/7 writing help.

We will provide study assistance with any task and get it done in as little as 3 hours.

Free Essay Samples

Check out our free law essay examples to gain insights and find inspiration!

Writing tools

Take your writing to the next level with our free tools: topic generator, summarizer, reworder, and others.

Read Authentic Customers’ Reviews

• Rating: 5 stars Angel LawBirdie is a very good source of inspiration and knowledge for students. It is entirely free, accessible, and even suitable for phones. I really like this database and hope that they will expand their collection. Highly recommend! Reviews.io Dec 9th, 2023
• Rating: 5 stars jeff292368831 The database is full of original papers written by students. And I know for sure that the students like me wrote them. You can find lots of law topics written in different styles; they have different lengths and also vary in citing styles. Resellerratings Dec 8th, 2023
• Rating: 5 stars Frederick T. This is, without a doubt, the best database I have ever used! Reading your samples inspires and motivates me so much! They also serve as a guide for structuring my own law essay. I appreciate all you do! Reviews.io Dec 7th, 2023
• Rating: 5 stars Ava D. Even though I enjoy researching and writing, sometimes, I lack inspiration. The last time I was writing a criminology essay, I found the best topic in this database. I hope my essay also becomes a part of this base one day. Sitejabber Dec 7th, 2023

Popular Law Subjects for Essays

• Anti-terrorism Legislation 46
• Common Law 100
• Constitutional Law 108
• Consumer Legislation 6
• Corporate & Business Law 125
• Criminal Law & Juvenile Justice 354
• Criminology & Crime Theory 305
• Employment Law 60
• Environmental Justice 9
• Health Law 63
• Intellectual Property Law 27
• Law Practice Management 70
• Legal Ethics 39
• Matrimonial Law 57
• Regulatory Law 19
• Transportation Law 3

LawBirdie is the biggest online database of free law essay examples. Our brilliant paper samples cover criminal law, civil rights, constitutional law, and other related subjects. All papers in our database are written by real straight-A students and filled with excellent ideas and insights!

LawBirdie is also designed to connect students with experienced academic experts. Our top-class specialists are always ready to assist you even with the most challenging task. With their help, you’ll be sure to improve your performance!

LawBirdie’s experts are meticulously chosen among thousands of candidates. We only hire the best to ensure they can ace absolutely any task. Want to see for yourself? Feel free to place an order—you will be amazed at the results!

How We Work

LawBirdie is more than just a vast online essay database: it's a unique platform with everything a law student needs.

We offer the highest-quality academic assistance 24/7

Our essay database holds the most extensive collection of free law essays

Our cutting-edge study tools can assist you with writing tasks

Best Topics for Law Essays

• Bill of Rights
• Constitution
• Contract Law
• Crime Investigation
• Criminal Justice
• Forensic Science

Newest law essay examples

Check out the recent updates of our law essay database to find an inspirational topic for your research.

Applying Laws to Everyday Situations

Introduction Health managers face several issues and often encounter dilemmas because they serve individuals with varying interests in a complex environment. Therefore, they experience hardships in critical decision-making regarding employee demands, ethical challenges, distribution of resources, and high-quality health service provision. However, medical principles, ethical standards, and health laws and...

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) mandated the development of national standards to prevent the unauthorized disclosure of private medical records. The HIPAA Privacy Rule was published by the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to carry out the provisions of HIPAA (Cohen et...

Age Discrimination in the Workplace

Unfair treatment of a person based on their age Age discrimination refers to unfair treatment of a person based on their age and remains to be an influential issue, especially in the workplace. Unjust behavior toward the older generation is considered the third most prevalent form of discrimination after racism...

UN Charter vs. US Constitution Comparison

Introduction The International Court of Justice (ICC) Statute is an integral part of the United Nations (UN) Charter. The UN Charter was signed on 26 June 1945, in San Francisco, and was enforced on 24 October 1945 (Henderson, 2010). The United States (US) Constitution established the national regime and fundamental...

Comparative Criminology: Personal Position

Comparative criminology studies crime and deviant behavior across different cultures and societies. It is a relatively new field of inquiry that has emerged only in the last few decades. While there is no single approach to comparative criminology, the area is united by a common interest in understanding how crime...

The First Amendment in the Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores Inc. Case

Introduction It is essential to assess the impacts of constitutional provisions on a venture and examine the business entity’s legal environment. One controversial case is between Burwell vs. Hobby Lobby Stores since it had multiple constitutional implications regarding the rule of law and religious importance in an organization. The first...

Patents: Benefits and Disadvantages

This paper discusses how patents may both contribute to the welfare of a company’s stakeholders and improve the life of society in general along with the disadvantages of their use. It goes without saying that for a substantial number of companies, patents remain a major source of revenue. According to...

The US Constitution and International Law

Introduction The United States Constitution is a government charter that defines the fundamental laws of the nation and describes the federal government’s jurisdiction. However, its ultimate aim is to affirm the US government is dedicated to ensuring the well-being and liberties of its people. As a result, several statutes of...

Unveiling Racial Bias in the Justice System

Introduction Racial discrimination is any discrimination against a person based on their race, skin color, or ethnic origin. Discrimination occurs when the other groups refuse to associate or share resources with the racial groups. In the United States, there exist such minority groups as Blacks, Hispanics, and American Indians. However,...

United Nations Charter vs. United States Constitution

Introduction The US Constitution and the United Nations Charter are two documents that establish the general guidelines that individuals, organizations, and governments should respect to prevent adverse outcomes and legal reparations. However, despite serving a purpose intended to enhance social cohesion and facilitate a favorable environment for future generations, the...

Custody Memorandum in Case of Family Violence

Memorandum Comes Sally Bright, by counsel, and for her Memorandum states as follows: Facts The participants, in this case, are the mother, Sally Bright, the father, John, and their 14-year-old daughter, Chastity. Sally and John are going through a divorce and are fighting for custody of Chastity. The facts of...

The Police Response to Violence Against Women

Introduction Violence against women is a major problem that is experienced globally. A national survey in the United States has estimated that a minimum of two million women experience gender-based violence and sexual harassment yearly. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) data recorded approximately a thousand six hundred murdered women...

Health Law: Patients and Communities Act

Drug abuse is a practice that prominently impacts the health index of individuals and the populace. Research indicates that the Patients and Communities Act is a profound policy supporting medical care and investment in eradicating the problem (Shapiro et al., 2019). Ideally, the regulatory framework promotes the implementation of techniques...

Timeline Analyses in Cold Criminal Cases

Introduction Criminal cases become cold when the investigation leads or forensic tests do not result in a successful arrest. Keatley et al. (2022) argue that investigators are frequently eager to employ unique methodologies to generate new ideas or insights in these circumstances. Cold cases sometimes necessitate the integration of previously...

Researching: Problems of Juvenile Delinquency

Bobbio, A., Arbach, K., & Illescas, S. R. (2020). Juvenile delinquency risk factors: Individual, social, opportunity or all of these together?. International journal of law, crime and justice, 62, 100388. Web. In this study, the authors examine the topic of risk factors that lead to delinquent behavior among juveniles through...

The Medicare Access and Children’s Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act

The CHIP (Children’s Health Insurance Program) has linked with Medicare and Medicaid to establish a strong foundation for assigning health coverage. This healthcare coverage can account for youngsters in underprivileged-income homes. Healthcare costs in the US are a problem as Americans spend a huge amount of money on healthcare yearly,...

Problems of Juvenile Delinquency

Effective police interactions with youth.

Police officers play a very crucial role in controlling juvenile delinquency. It is believed that police officers have better tolerance when it comes to juvenile delinquency because they are usually the first individuals at a crime scene or where there is an issue. The officers solve these small crimes committed...

Violence against Women: Article Summary and Reflection

Despite measures taken to prevent instances of violence against women (VAW), instances of women being victims of male aggression remain disturbingly high. Therefore, further efforts must be geared toward introducing preventive measures and identifying emergent threats. In her article “Situating Institutional Responses to Latina Intimate Partner Violence Victims: An Argument...

Hudson vs. Michigan and Breonna Taylor Case

The Reasoning of Courts in Hudson’s Vs. Michigan’s Case In the 2006 case of Hudson against Michigan, the U.S. Supreme Court gets faced with the question of whether or not evidence seized should be suppressed despite the police officer’s violation of the Fourth Amendment’s “knock-and-announce” rule (Clancy, 2012). The majority...

Griswold v. Connecticut: Case Analysis

In law, there are two approaches to legal interpretation: textualism and non-textualism. Textualists believe that the constitution should be construed literally by focusing on the plain text of the legal document. In contrast, non-textualists, also called originalists, approach the meaning of the law as understood by the populace at the...

The Affordable Care Act and the Single-Payer Plan

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) is the comprehensive medical reform legislation enacted in March 2010. This law was to enable the provision of cheaper health insurance for more people. In particular, (About the Affordable Care Act, n.d.). However, it has not lived up to its promise because the cost has...

Crime Rates in the United States

Unfortunately, there are pieces of evidence suggesting that crime rates in the United States have increased significantly. Particularly, the overall violent crime indicator rose by +5.2% in 2020 (Grawert, 2022). At the moment, American society has to face a period of political, social, and economic reforms, the worsening of the...

Status Offenses and Female Delinquency

Introduction A status offense is a non-criminal act committed by a minor citizen. Hence, a person may be arrested for skipping school, violating a local curfew, refusing the authority of parents, or consuming alcohol and tobacco (“Status offenses by juveniles,” 2021). These actions are illegal due to a specific age...

• Udaan Programs
• Udaan Webinar
• IBPS SO LAW
• Civil Judge (Pre+Mains)
• Hotel Management
• CAT & OMETs
• Jaipur [Bapu Nagar]
• Jaipur [Vaishali Nagar]
• Jaipur [JLN Marg]
• Delhi (South Extension)
• Delhi (Pitampura)
• Delhi (CP Center)
• Delhi (Dwarka)
• Gurugram (Sector 27)
• Gurugram (Sector 50)
• Mumbai (Andheri)
• Mumbai (Navi Mumbai)
• Mumbai (Thane)
• Chandigarh Sector 36D
• Chandigarh Sector 8C
• Lucknow Hazratganj
• Lucknow Aliganj
• Jaipur (Bapu Nagar)
• Jaipur (Vaishali Nagar)
• Gurugram (Sector 14)
• Chandigarh 36D Sector
• Chandigarh 8C Sector
• Jaipur[Vaishali Nagar]
• Navi Mumbai
• Lucknow [Aliganj]
• Lucknow [Hazratganj]
• CUET Law 2024
• IPMAT Indore
• IPMAT Rohtak
• Christ University
• St. Xaviers
• Madhya Pradesh (MPCJ)
• Chhattisgarh (CGPSC)
• Jharkhand (JPSC)
• Delhi (DJS)
• Haryana (HJS)
• Uttar Pradesh (UP PCSJ)
• LegalEdge AISAT
• LegalEdge IST
• Scholarship Test (English)
• Scholarship Test (Hindi)
• SuperGrads IPM AISAT
• SuperGrads IPM IST
• Supergrads CUET
• SuperGrads CAT
• Creative Edge
• LegalEdge After College
• LegalEdge AIOM
• SuperGrads AICUET
• Judiciary AIOMC
• Supergrads IPM AIOM
• CreativEdge AIOM
• Next Gen Internship

Free Videos

• CLAT Free Videos
• Uttarakhand
• Judiciary Notes
• Judiciary Videos
• KAUN BANEGA JUDGE
• Daily Current Affairs
• Weekly Current Affairs
• Monthly Current Affairs
• LegalEdge UG
• SuperGrads Webinar
• SuperGrads CUET Webinar
• Creative Edge Webinar
• Judiciary (Beginners)
• UDAAN Webinar
• Law School Blogs
• LAW Entrances
• Management Entrances
• CUET Exam [UG & PG]
• Architecture Entrances
• LAW & Judiciary
• Design & Architecture

50 Most Expected Essay Topics for Judiciary Exams 2023

Author : Tanya Kaushal

Updated On : November 16, 2023

Reader's Digest -   Passing the Civil Judge test might be challenging without excelling in the essay writing component. Hence, essay writing bahut zaruri hai ! Read the top 50 most important essay topics for judiciary exams. Know the hot law-related judiciary essay topics of 2023! 

Why should you focus on Essay writing? This might be the go-to question for all of you. Essay writing questions assess your competence to judge, analyze, and write about the subject asked in the Judicial Services Examination.

Mastering the art of essay writing is essential for success in the judiciary exams. The essay writing section is crucial in the judiciary exam and carries significant weight. This article will discuss some important essay topics you should be prepared for, along with tips and strategies to help you write effective essays.

The Essay Paper is among the most scoring papers in the Judiciary Exams. It is low-hanging fruit that every candidate must opt for.

For instance, in MP Paper 2, candidates face the challenge of demonstrating their court practice, writing skills, and awareness of current legal issues. Furthermore, the essay component carries significant scoring weight, with 20 marks allocated for writing on social and legal issues.

Similarly, in RJS Mains Paper 4 Language Paper 2, you must showcase your English essay writing skills. Moreover, in Bihar Judiciary Syllabus 2023 for General English, you are tested on your comprehension and writing abilities through passages or summaries.

So, whether it's analyzing social issues, addressing legal topics, or exhibiting language proficiency, mastering the art of essay writing is crucial to excelling in judiciary exams. Prepare to sharpen your writing skills and delve into the 50 most expected essay topics for Judiciary Exams 2023!

Download FREE Study Material for Judiciary Exams by Judiciary Gold

Most Important Essay Topics for Judiciary Exams 2023

Essays are the most scoring among all the papers of the judiciary exams. However, the judiciary aspirants ignore it. The majority have the attitude, 'ab essay bhi padhna padega'. So, let us clear the air of doubt regarding the essay.

Writing an essay on legal topics for a judicial exam becomes more challenging since research and sufficient legal understanding are required. In such scenarios, practice is the only key to writing a good essay in the Upcoming Judiciary Exams .

Make the essay writing a fun session. Write down each topic on the paper cit and pick a new topic, aka chit every alternative day from the list of most important essay topics for Judiciary Exams. Practice as many questions as possible from the previous year's papers; this will help improve your vocabulary and time management skills. 

The following are some of the most critical essay topics for a judiciary or current essay topics in 2023 for Judiciary exams that you need to focus on to score well in essay writing:

Apart from the above-mentioned topics, here are more topics for your reference:

•   Lawyers' Role in Speedy Justice-delivery
• Capital Punishment
• Human Rights in India 
• Empowering a woman empowers the next generations.
• Marriage - an institution of great social relevance
• Farmers' stir - more than a loan waiver
• The drug, drinking and driving never go together
• Cyberbullying - more extreme than face-to-face taunts
• Global warming is warning us through sea level rising and ice caps melting
• With value education, build the pillars of character
• Lawyers' Role in Speedy Justice-delivery
• Apolitical Education
• Skilling the youth of India
• Education is a weapon that can change the world
• Right to education - challenges and prospects
• The dark disparity gap between rich and poor
• Why is the administration insensitive to the plight of slum dwellers
• Environment vs Growth
• Is communalism a challenge to peace or propagation of religion or something else
• Right to privacy
• Young Indian's preferences from job search to job creation
• Should educational qualifications be made mandatory for politicians
• Reservations and Human Development in India
• Beto Bachao - Beti Padhao, India ko aage badhao
• India & China, from rivalry to enmity
• How the internet changed the way we live
• Cybernation - a threat or a convivial to employment
• Be the change you want to see in others
• Justice delayed Justice denied

Previous Year's Essays Topics in Judiciary Exams 

Here is the table of the essay topics that were asked in the previous year's PCS J Exams:

50 Most Expected Essay Topics for Upcoming Judiciary Exams 2023

Essays can increase your score and improve your final rank with little effort and the proper technique. The judiciary aspirants run from North to South and East to West to search for the most expected essay topics for judiciary exams.

Our experts have curated 50 essay topics for judiciary exams from the most trending topics of National and international importance. Practice just one topic every alternative day. This way, you will cover three weekly topics, totalling almost 50, for four months. 

The following list entails the fifty most important essay topics for PCS J exams. Prepare these topics well in advance to excel in the Essay section of the Judicial Services Exam:

• Role of courts/courts during a pandemic
• Violence against women
• Child rights during lockdown
• Digitalisation of education
• Right to digital education
• Vaccination Policy of India
• Contempt of court
• Power of court to order relief for covid affected patients
• Labourer's/daily wage workers' rights
• Women's Rights during lockdown
• Hate speech
• Organizing mass gatherings during a pandemic
• Essential services during lockdown
• Restriction of rights of citizens during pandemic/lockdown
• Freedom of religion vis a vis pandemic
• Role of social media in the Pandemic
• Growing unemployment
• Medical infrastructure of the country
• Participation of the Judiciary in Politics
• Mental health
• Freedom of speech and expression
• Freedom of movement
• Sustainable environment
• Growing intolerance
• Social and legal ramifications of CAA/UAPA
• Right to protest
• Rights of the LGBTQIA+ community
• Too much democracy
• Atmanirbhar Bharat
• Terrorism (talibanism)
• Problem of malnutrition
• New India - Why Still A Union Territory?
• Debate on nationalism
• Pollution crises
• Article 370
• Water disputes between states
• Fugitive economic offender bill
• Labour Reform
• White collar crime
• Women Empowerment
• Triple Talaq
• Cyberbullying
• Global Warming
• Right to Education
• Gender disparity in the social sector
• Justice delayed justice denied
• Protection of Child Rights in India
• Social Justice in Indian Democracy
• Alternate Dispute Redressal (ADR)
• Right to Constitutional Remedy

Important Current Legal Essay Topics for Judiciary Exam 2023

Solving previous year's Questions Papers for Judiciary Exams  will help you know the difficulty level and the type of questions asked in the essay paper. Refer to the following list of essays on current legal topics in India:

• Importance of Uniform Civil Code in India
• Role of Media in protecting democratic values in India
• Causes and Consequences of Violence Against Women in India
• Protection of human rights; Indian scenario
• How gender inequality affects the progress of our country
• The education system in India
• Causes and Consequences of Corruption in India
• The Practice of Child Labour In India
• The right to privacy is a fundamental right in India
• Right to Education in India

Read More : How to Read Bare Acts for Judiciary Exams?

• Barriers to Access to Justice in India
• Social Justice in Indian Democracy: An Overview
• The law relating to contempt of courts in India
• Review of administrative law in India
• Alternative dispute resolution in India
• Child Rights in India
• Right to constitutional remedies under the Constitution of India
• Emergency provisions of the Constitution of India
• Role and Powers of Governor
• Functions of Parliament in India: An overview
• Right to a fair trial in India

Important English Essay Topics for Judiciary Exams 2023

English is a subject where you can improve your grades in the judicial services examination. 

Following a few  English preparation tips for Judiciary Exams will help enhance your grammar and vocabulary, which are essential for writing a good essay.

The following are essential English essay topics for the Civil Judge exam:

• Role of Media
• Demonetisation
• Cyber Security
• Child Labour
• Industrial Development/Pollution
• Farmers suicide
• Water disputes
• Social Media
• Globalization
• Recent Laws
• World meetings
• Social issues

Read More : Short Tricks to Memorize Bare Acts for Judiciary exams

Mastering the Art of Writing An Excellent Essay for Judiciary Exams 2023

While an essay is a large project, there are many steps a student can take to break down the task into manageable chunks.

Following are the six steps to drafting an essay:

• Know precisely what is being asked of you. 
• Prepare an outline or diagram of your ideas around the selected topic. 
• To write a successful essay, you must organize your thoughts.
• You must see connections and links between ideas more clearly by taking what's already in your head and putting it to paper. 
• The body of your essay argues, explains, or describes your topic.
• Each main idea that you wrote in bullets.
• The introduction should attract the reader's attention and show the focus of your essay. Your diagram or outline will become a separate section within the body of your essay.
• The conclusion brings closure to the topic and sums up your overall ideas while providing a final perspective on your topic.
• Read your response carefully to ensure there are no mistakes and you didn't miss anything.

How to Write a Good Essay in Judiciary Exam 2023?

Essay writing is an art that cannot be learned overnight or in a month. To write a good essay, you must read books, love reading and writing, and follow good authors. An Essay mainly depends on your command of the language and how much you know about the topic .

The following are some of the best essay writing preparation tips for the Judiciary exam :

First, you should read newspapers, magazines, etc., as it will help improve your vocabulary, knowledge, and viewpoint.

1. Selection of Option

• Generally, you will be given 3 to 4 topics in the exam.
• You have to choose the one per your knowledge of the particular topic.

2. Planning

• After finalizing the topic, you must plan your writing with a balanced approach.
• Jot down the key points to be mentioned in your essay.
• Your views must be presented in objective nature rather than presenting them in subjective nature.
• Also, mention your opinions and arguments with examples in your essay.
• Include facts and figures to support your approach.

Read more : Judiciary Exam Syllabus

3. Prioritize Important Points

• Highlight the essential points in the initial paragraph of the essay. 
• Try to include all the critical points related to the topic in the essay.
• Make text bold or italics to highlight the critical points in the middle of the paragraph.

4. Interlink Each Point

• Try to interlink each point in the essay.
• The second paragraph must continue the first paragraph; the third paragraph must relate to the second one, and so on.
• Do not repeat the content of the introduction.

In conclusion, the 50 Most Expected Essay Topics for Judiciary Exams 2023 are invaluable for aspiring candidates. These topics cover various legal issues and provide a comprehensive understanding of the current judicial landscape. As candidates prepare for their exams, here are the key takeaways:

• The essay topics encompass diverse areas of law, including constitutional law, criminal law, and civil law.
• Understanding key concepts and recent developments in these areas is crucial for success.
• Candidates should enhance their analytical and critical thinking skills to address these topics effectively.
• Regular practice and mock essay writing will help candidates develop their writing style and time management.
• Familiarity with landmark judgments and relevant case laws will strengthen essay arguments.
• Continuous self-assessment and revision will ensure a well-rounded preparation for the judiciary exams.

By utilizing these key takeaways, candidates can confidently and competently approach the essay section of the judiciary exams.

"Every morning, you have two choices: continue to sleep with your dreams or wake up and chase them."

Download Judiciary Study Material

Fill your details

Recently Published

32nd Bihar Judiciary Prelims Result 2024 Out Now [Official] Download Merit List

Updated On : April 5, 2024

How to Prepare for CLAT 2025 in 1 Year?

Rajasthan Judiciary Cut Off 2024

Haryana Judiciary 2024 Previous Year Question Papers with Solution PDF

Updated On : April 4, 2024

Judiciary Exam Question Papers 2024 - Download PDF Here (State-Wise)

Frequently Asked Questions

Is there any recommended newspaper for essay preparation of judiciary exam?

How are Judiciary Exams Question Papers useful in preparing for the essay writing?

Is the Judiciary Exam easy?

What is the best way to prepare for important essay topics for Judiciary Exams?

Which book to refer for Important Essay Topics for Judiciary Exams?

What are good topics for essays in Judiciary Exams 2023?

November 16, 2023

Online Coaching

Test Series

Trending Exams

• Architecture
• Career Counselling

Scholarship Tests

• Judiciary Gold
• Supergrads IPM
• SuperGrads CUET

Mentor Tips

• CLAT Prep Tips
• AILET Prep Tips
• IPMAT Prep Tips
• NATA Prep Tips
• NID Prep Tips
• Judiciary Prep Tips
• CAT Prep Tips

ABOUT TOP RANKERS

Toprankers, launched in 2016, is India’s most preferred digital counselling & preparation platform for careers beyond engineering & medicine. We envision to build awareness and increase the success rate for lucrative career options after 12th. We offer best learning practices and end-to-end support to every student preparing for management, humanities, law, judiciary & design entrances.

: [email protected]

: +91-7676564400

Social Channels

Content Writing AI in Legal Writing: Draft Legal Documents in Minutes

Legal writing, to me, is not just writing sentences; it’s about wielding language as a precise tool to communicate law’s intricacies. Get this: I, too, find legal briefing and drafting similar to a linguistic labyrinth just like you do. Legal jargon can be a lot to take in – but thankfully, AI in legal writing can balance expert knowledge with efficient communication .

I have personally used AI for legal writing under several scenarios, sharing of the use cases below along with the prompts I use:

Legal Research and Citation:

In my experience, I’ve found that AI can swiftly sift through vast legal databases, saving hours that would otherwise be spent manually researching.

Use Case: Ask AI to retrieve recent case law or statutes on a specific legal topic.

Reusable AI Legal Writing Prompt: 

“Please provide an overview of the most recent case law or statutes related to [legal topic], including any notable changes or developments.”

Drafting Legal Documents:

I’ve witnessed the AI’s ability to generate comprehensive drafts, reducing the time it takes to start working on the finer legal details.

Use Case: Ask AI to generate a first draft of a contract or legal document.

“Create a draft of a [type of document], including standard clauses related to [specific details]. Ensure it complies with [relevant laws/regulations].”

Legal Opinion and Analysis:

The AI’s analytical prowess comes into play here, offering insights and highlighting nuances that might be overlooked.

Use Case: You can summarize and analyze a complex legal opinion or document.

Reusable AI Legal Writing Prompt : 

Provide a concise summary and analysis of the key points in the legal opinion/document [title]. Include any implications or nuances that may not be immediately apparent.”

Client Communication:

Clients appreciate prompt responses. AI can help craft well-articulated messages, maintaining professionalism and clarity.

Use Case: Use AI to generate a clear and concise response to a client’s legal query.

“Compose a response to the client’s inquiry about [specific legal issue]. Explain the situation, potential courses of action, and any relevant legal precedents.”

Legal Blogging or Content Creation:

Leveraging AI for content creation has proven to be an effective way to consistently produce high-quality material.

Use Case: You can use AI to generate engaging and informative content on a legal topic for a blog or website.

“Write an article/blog post on [specific legal topic]. Include key legal principles, recent developments, and practical advice for readers.”

Legal Letter Drafting:

AI is adept at crafting professional and assertive letters, maintaining the necessary tone for legal communication.

Use Case: Generate a formal letter to opposing counsel or another party regarding a legal matter.

Reusable AI Legal Writing Prompt:  

“Draft a letter addressing [specific legal matter] to [name of opposing counsel/other party]. Include relevant facts, legal arguments, and any proposed resolutions or actions.”

Legal Summaries for Clients:

Simplifying legal language for clients is crucial, and AI can assist in making legal information more accessible.

Use Case: Summarize the key points of a complex legal document or court decision for a client.

“Provide a clear and concise summary of the [document/court decision] for the client. Focus on explaining the implications and potential next steps in plain language.”

Regulatory Compliance Check:

AI can efficiently cross-reference complex regulations, ensuring businesses stay within legal boundaries.

Use Case: Assess a business practice or policy for compliance with relevant regulations.

“Examine [specific business practice/policy] for compliance with [relevant regulations]. Highlight any potential areas of non-compliance and suggest adjustments or mitigations.”

Legal Training Materials:

AI can contribute to creating engaging training materials, facilitating effective knowledge transfer in legal education.

Use Case: Generate training materials for legal seminars or workshops.

“Develop training materials on [legal topic] for a seminar. Include key legal principles, case studies, and practical examples to enhance participant understanding.”

Legal Marketing Content:

AI can assist in creating persuasive marketing content that resonates with potential clients, showcasing the firm’s strengths.

Use Case: Create compelling content for legal marketing purposes.

Reusable AI in Legal Writing Prompt:  

“Craft a promotional piece on [specific legal service]. Highlight key benefits, success stories, and reasons why clients should choose our legal expertise.”

Should You Use AI in Legal Writing?

Absolutely!  AI for legal writing is a game-changer, but like any tool, it requires thoughtful consideration. Here are some dos and don’ts, drawing from my experience on AI legal writing:

Dos and Don’ts of Using AI in Legal Writing

AI legal writing Reusable Prompt

Do Use AI for Efficient Legal Research:

Do : Use AI to swiftly navigate through extensive legal databases for research.

Example : Recently, a colleague saved hours by employing AI to compile the latest case law on a complex intellectual property matter. The speed of information retrieval was remarkable.

Do Use AI to Get Drafting Assistance:

Do : Employ AI for generating initial drafts of legal documents.

Example : I’ve witnessed smoother workflows when AI is used to outline the framework of contracts, allowing legal professionals to focus on refining nuances rather than starting from scratch.

Do Use AI for Consistent Content Creation:

Do : Utilize AI for creating consistent and high-quality content for legal blogs or marketing materials.

Example : Our firm increased its online presence by regularly publishing insightful blog posts generated with AI assistance. This not only saved time but also maintained a consistent tone across various pieces.

Do Use AI for Client Communication Support:

Do : Use AI to help craft clear and prompt responses to client inquiries.

Example : During a busy period, an AI-generated initial response bought us time to delve deeper into a client’s complex query before providing a comprehensive reply.

Do Use AI for Legal Training and Educational Materials:

Do : Integrate AI in developing educational materials for legal seminars or workshops.

Example : Our training sessions became more engaging when we used AI to compile relevant case studies and legal principles. It allowed us to focus on delivering impactful sessions.

Don’t Trust AI without Verification:

Don’t : Blindly accept AI-generated content without thorough verification, especially in critical legal matters.

Example : We once had a situation where the AI misinterpreted a recent legal update, potentially leading to incorrect advice. It underscored the importance of human oversight.

Don’t Ignore Ethical Considerations:

Don’t : Overlook ethical considerations, especially when dealing with sensitive client information.

Example : We established strict protocols after an inadvertent data exposure incident. Trust in AI should be coupled with a robust commitment to data security.

Don’t Skip Review and Editing:

Don’t : Skip the review and editing phase assuming AI-generated content is flawless.

Example : We learned the hard way that while AI excels in structure, human intuition is crucial for catching subtle errors that algorithms might overlook.

Don’t Provide Unclear Instructions:

Don’t : Provide vague instructions; be specific to get accurate and relevant results.

Example : Requesting a draft without specifying key clauses led to a generic document. AI excels with precision in instructions.

Don’t Underestimate Human Expertise:

Don’t : Replace human expertise entirely; AI is a tool, not a substitute for legal professionals.

Example : Our team found that while AI accelerates processes, nuanced legal arguments and strategic thinking are inherently human strengths.

The Challenges in Legal Writing and AI to the Rescue

Legal writing is the art of expressing legal ideas and arguments in a clear, precise, and formal manner. It spans over legal documents, such as contracts, court briefs, legal opinions, and statutes. The primary aim of legal writing is to convey complex legal concepts accurately and comprehensively to a diverse audience, from clients to judges. 

Now, let’s talk about the challenges in legal writing—common hurdles that every legal professional encounters:

Precision vs. Clarity:

Legal writing requires a delicate balance between precision and clarity. Legal documents require utmost accuracy, but they should also be understandable to a non-legal audience.

I remember a case where an overly technical contract led to misunderstandings between parties. It shows the importance of clarity in legal writing.

Legal Jargon:

The overuse of legal jargon can create confusion rather than clarity.

In a legal brief, excessively used Latin terms may leave the judge bewildered. It highlights the need to communicate legal principles in plain language whenever possible.

Complex Formatting Rules:

Legal writing has strict formatting requirements, especially in court documents, can be daunting.

A minor formatting error in a court filing can lead to unnecessary delays. It underscores how attention to detail is crucial in legal writing.

Detail and Brevity:

Another challenge is to convey comprehensive legal arguments within the constraints of word limits or reader attention spans.

Drafting a succinct yet comprehensive summary of a complex case for a client proved challenging. It taught me the value of concise communication.

Keeping Up with Legal Changes:

You must stay abreast of constantly evolving laws and regulations to ensure legal writing accuracy.

A legal opinion based on outdated statutes may lead to embarrassing correction. It reinforces the need for continuous legal education.

Diverse Audiences:

Another major legal writing challenge is adapting the tone and complexity of legal writing to suit the knowledge level of different audiences, from clients to judges.

Crafting a client advisory may require you to simplify complex legal concepts without oversimplifying. It emphasizes the importance of audience awareness.

A vaguely worded contract can easily lead to a protracted dispute. It underscores the need for meticulous legal drafting to avoid future legal headaches.

The Bottomline on AI in Legal Writing

Legal writing challenges are imperative and it’s crucial for legal professionals to adeptly communicate the law. Fortunately, AI in legal writing solves one of the major legal writing challenges. AI helps in legal drafting and reviewing content for clarity and precision. However, the role of human touch in polishing AI responses is indispensable.

Recommended Reads:

• How to use AI in Medical Writing [Complete Guide]
• How to Use AI to Navigate User Intent and Hit the Bulls’ Eye [Guide]
• Complete Guide to “Fixing” AI Generated Content
• 11 Ways to Use AI To Improve Writing – Level The Field with Native Writers!
• AI Powered Social Media Marketing [Complete Guide 101]

Recent Posts

• Applications of Generative AI in Healthcare – Uses and Challenges
• AI Powered B2B Lead Generation [2024]
• What is Content Automation And Which Tools are Best for It?
• AI Personalized Content: Beginner’s Guide & Prompts
• What is AI as a Service? Definition, Types, Benefits & Trends
• Affiliate Marketing
• Artificial Intelligence
• Content Scaling
• Business Pitch Deck
• Copywriting
• Newsletters
• Product Description
• Social Media
• Songwriting
• Title and Headline
• Writing Ideas
• Call to Action (CTA)
• Email Marketing
• NLP (Natural Language Processing)
• Proposal Writing
• Writer's Block Problem

Email Address

• « AI in Fiction Writing – Tips, Use Cases and Reusable AI Prompts
• AI in Technical Writing – Examples and Reusable Prompts »
• Privacy Policy
• Terms of Use
• Chat with AI
• AI Email Generator
• Social Media Ads Generator
• Blog Idea Generator
• Blog Outline Generator
• Complete Article Generator
• All use cases >
• Bloggers & Vloggers
• Digital Marketing Agency
• Local Stores
• Freelancers
• All industries >
• Affiliate Program
• Comparisons
• System Status

Get in Touch

MIA   >  Archive   >  Pashukanis

Evgeny Pashukanis

Marksistskaia teoriia gosudarstva i prava , pp.9-44 in E. B. Pashukanis (ed.), Uchenie o gosudarstve i prave (1932), Partiinoe Izd., Moscow. From Evgeny Pashukanis, Selected Writings on Marxism and Law (eds. P. Beirne & R. Sharlet), London & New York 1980, pp.273-301. Translated by Peter B. Maggs . Copyright © Peter B. Maggs. Published here by kind permission of the translator. Downloaded from home.law.uiuc.edu/~pmaggs/pashukanis.htm Marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for the Marxists’ Internet Archive .

Introductory Note

In the winter of 1929-1930, during the first Five Year Plan, the national economy of the USSR underwent dramatic and violent ruptures with the inauguration of forced collectivization and rapid heavy industrialization. Concomitantly, it seemed, the Party insisted on the reconstruction and realignment of the appropriate superstructures in conformity with the effectuation of these new social relations of production. In this spirit Pashukanis was no longer criticized but now overtly attacked in the struggle on the “legal front”. In common with important figures in other intellectual disciplines, such as history, in late 1930 Pashukanis undertook a major self-criticism which was qualitatively different from the incremental changes to his work that he had produced earlier. During the following year, 1931, Pashukanis outlined this theoretical reconstruction in his speech to the first conference of Marxist jurists, a speech entitled Towards a Marxist-Leninist Theory of Law . The first results appeared a year later in a collective volume The Doctrine of State and Law .

Chapter I of this collective work is translated below, The Marxist Theory of State and Law , and was written by Pashukanis himself It should be noted that this volume exemplifies the formal transformations which occurred in Soviet legal scholarship during this heated period. Earlier, Pashukanis and other jurists had authored their own monographs; the trend was now towards a collective scholarship which promised to maximize individual safety. The source of authority for much of the work that ensued increasingly became the many expressions of Stalin’s interpretation of Bolshevik history, class struggle and revisionism, most notably his Problems of Leninism . Last, but not least, the language and vocabulary of academic discourse in the 1920s had been rich, open-ended and diverse, and varied tremendously with the personal preferences of the individual author; this gave way to a standardized and simplified style of prose devoid of nuance and ambiguity, and which was very much in keeping with the new theoretical content which comprised official textbooks on the theory of state and law. The reader will perhaps discover that The Marxist Theory of State and Law is a text imbued with these tensions. Pashukanis’ radical reconceptualization of the unity of form and content, and of the ultimate primacy of the relations of production, is without doubt to be preferred to his previous notions. But this is a preference guided by the advantages of editorial hindsight, and we feel that we cannot now distinguish between those reconceptualizations which Pashukanis may actually have intended and those which were produced by the external pressures of political opportunism.

CHAPTER I Socio-economic Formations, State, and Law

1. the doctrine of socio-economic formations as a basis for the marxist theory of state and law.

The doctrine of state and law is part of a broader whole, namely, the complex of sciences which study human society. The development of these sciences is in turn determined by the history of society itself, i.e. by the history of class struggle.

It has long since been noted that the most powerful and fruitful catalysts which foster the study of social phenomena are connected with revolutions. The English Revolution of the seventeenth century gave birth to the basic directions of bourgeois social thought, and forcibly advanced the scientific, i.e. materialist, understanding of social phenomena.

It suffices to mention such a work as Oceana – by the English writer Harrington, and which appeared soon after the English Revolution of the seventeenth century – in which changes in political structure are related to the changing distribution of landed property. It suffices to mention the work of Barnave – one of the architects of the great French Revolution – who in the same way sought explanations of political struggle and the political order in property relations. In studying bourgeois revolutions, French restorationist historians – Guizot, Mineaux and Thierry – concluded that the leitmotif of these revolutions was the class struggle between the third estate (i.e. the bourgeoisie) and the privileged estates of feudalism and their monarch. This is why Marx, in his well-known letter to Weydemeyer, indicates that the theory of the class struggle was known before him. “As far as I am concerned”, he wrote,

no credit is due to me for discovering the existence of classes in modern society, or the struggle between them. Long before me bourgeois historians had described the historical development of this class struggle, and bourgeois economists the economic anatomy of the classes.

What I did that was new was to prove: (1) that the existence of classes is only bound up with particular historical forms of struggle in the development of production ...; (2) that the class struggle inevitably leads to the dictatorship of the proletariat; (3) that this dictatorship itself only constitutes the transition to the abolition of all classes and the establishment of a classless society. [1]

[ Section 2 omitted – eds. ]

  Top of the page  

3. The class type of state and the form of government

The doctrine of socio-economic formations is particularly important to Marx’s theory of state and law, because it provides the basis for the precise and scientific delineation of the different types of state and the different systems of law.

Bourgeois political and juridical theorists attempt to establish a classification of political and legal forms without scientific criteria; not from the class essence of the forms, but from more or less external characteristics. Bourgeois theorists of the state, assiduously avoiding the question of the class nature of the state, propose every type of artificial and scholastic definition and conceptual distinction. For instance, in the past, textbooks on the state divided the state into three “elements”: territory, population and power.

Some scholars go further. Kellen – one of the most recent Swedish theorists of the state – distinguishes five elements or phenomena of the state: territory, people, economy, society and, finally, the state as the formal legal subject of power. All these definitions and distinctions of elements, or aspects of the state, are no more than a scholastic game of empty concepts since the main point is absent: the division of society into classes, and class domination. Of course, the state cannot exist without population, or territory, or economy, or society. This is an incontrovertible truth. But, at the same time, it is true that all these “elements” existed at that stage of development when there was no state. Equally, classless communist society – having territory, population and an economy – will do without the state since the necessity of class suppression will disappear.

The feature of power, or coercive power, also tells one exactly nothing. Lenin, in his polemic of the 1890s with Struve asserted that: “he most incorrectly sees the distinguishing feature of the state as coercive power. Coercive power exists in every human society – both in the tribal structure and in the family, but there was no state.” And further, Lenin concludes: “The distinguishing feature of the state is the existence of a separate class of people in whose hands power is concentrated. Obviously, no one could use the term ‘State’ in reference to a community in which the ‘organization of order’ is administered in turn by all of its members.” [2]

Struve’s position, according to which the distinguishing feature of a state is coercive power, was not without reason termed “professorial” by Lenin. Every bourgeois science of the state is full of conclusions on the essence of this coercive power. Disguising the class character of the state, bourgeois scholars interpret this coercion in a purely psychological sense. “For power and subordination”, wrote one of the Russian bourgeois jurists (Lazarevsky), “two elements are necessary: the consciousness of those exercising power that they have the right to obedience, and the consciousness of the subordinates that they must obey.”

From this, Lazarevsky and other bourgeois jurists reached the following conclusion: state power is based upon the general conviction of citizens that a specific state has the right to issue its decrees and laws. Thus, the real fact-concentration of the means of force and coercion in the hands of a particular class-is concealed and masked by the ideology of the bourgeoisie. While the feudal landowning state sanctified its power by the authority of religion, the bourgeoisie uses the fetishes of statute and law. In connection with this, we also find the theory of bourgeois jurists-which now has been adopted in its entirety by the Social Democrats whereby the state is viewed as an agency acting in the interests of the whole society. “If the source of state power derives from class”, wrote another of the bourgeois jurists (Magaziner), “then to fulfil its tasks it must stand above the class struggle. Formally, it is the arbiter of the class struggle, and even more than that: it develops the rules of this struggle.”

It is precisely this false theory of the supra-class nature of the state that is used for the justification of the treacherous policy of the Social Democrats. In the name “of the general interest”, Social Democrats deprive the unemployed of their welfare payments, help in reducing wages, and encourage shooting at workers’ demonstrations.

Not wishing to recognize the basic fact, i.e. that states differ according to their class basis, bourgeois theorists of the state concentrate all their attention on various forms of government. But this difference by itself is worthless. Thus, for instance, in ancient Greece and ancient Rome we have the most varied forms of government. But all the transitions from monarchy to republic, from aristocracy to democracy, which we observe there, do not destroy the basic fact that these states, regardless of their different forms, were slave-owning states. The apparatus of coercion, however it was organized, belong to the slave-owners and assured their mastery over the slaves with the help of armed force, assured the right of the slave-owners to dispose of the labour and personality of the slaves, to exploit them, to commit any desired act of violence against them.

Distinguishing between the form of rule and the class essence of the state is particularly important for the correct strategy of the working class in its struggle with capitalism. Proceeding from this distinction, we establish that to the extent that private property and the power of capital remain untouchable, to this extent the democratic form of government does not change the essence of the matter. Democracy with the preservation of capitalist exploitation will always be democracy for the minority, democracy for the propertied; it will always mean the exploitation and subjugation of the great mass of the working people. Therefore theorists of the Second International such as Kautsky, who contrast “democracy” in general with “dictatorship”, entirely refuse to consider their class nature. They replace Marxism with vulgar legal dogmatism, and act as the scholarly champions and lackeys of capitalism.

The different forms of rule had already arisen in slave-owning society. Basically, they consist of the following types: the monarchic state with an hereditary head, and the republic where power is elective and where there are no offices which pass by inheritance. In addition, aristocracy, or the power of a minority (i.e. a state where participation in the administration of the state is limited by law to a definite and rather narrow circle of privileged persons) is distinguished from democracy (or, literally, the rule of the people), i.e. a state where by law all take part in deciding public affairs either directly or through elected representatives. The distinction between monarchy, aristocracy and democracy had already been established by the Greek philosopher Aristotle in the fourth century. All the modern bourgeois theories of the state could add little to this classification.

Actually the significance of one form or another can be gleaned only by taking into account the concrete historical conditions under which it arose and existed, and only in the context of the class nature of a specific state. Attempts to establish any general abstract laws of the movement of state forms – with which bourgeois theorists of the state have often been occupied – have nothing in common with science.

In particular, the change of the form of government depends on concrete historical conditions, on the condition of the class struggle, and on how relationships are formed between the ruling class and the subordinate class, and also within the ruling class itself

The forms of government may change although the class nature of the state remains the same. France, in the course of the nineteenth century, and after the revolution of 1830 until the present time, was a constitutional monarchy, an empire and a republic, and the rule of the bourgeois capitalist state was maintained in all three of these forms. Conversely, the same form of government (for instance a democratic republic) which was encountered in antiquity as one of the variations of the slave-owning state, is in our time one of the forms of capitalist domination.

Therefore, in studying any state, it is very important primarily to examine not its external form but its internal class content, placing the concrete historical conditions of the class struggle at the very basis of scrutiny.

The question of the relationship between the class type of the state and the form of government is still very little developed. In the bourgeois theory of the state this question not only could not be developed, but could not even be correctly posed, because bourgeois science always tries to disguise the class nature of all states, and in particular the class nature of the capitalist state. Often therefore, bourgeois theorists of the state, without analysis, conflate characteristics relating to the form of government and characteristics relating to the class nature of the state.

As an example one may adduce the classification which is proposed in one of the newest German encyclopaedias of legal science.

The author [Kellreiter] distinguishes: (a) absolutism and dictatorship, and considers that the basic characteristic of these forms is that state powers are concentrated in the hands of one person. As an example, he mentions the absolute monarchy of Louis XIV in France, tsarist autocracy in Russia and the dictatorial power which was invested by the procedure of extraordinary powers in the one person, for instance the president of the German Republic on the basis of Art.48 of the Weimar Constitution; (b) constitutionalism, characterized by the separation of powers, their independence and their checks and balances, thereby weakening the pressure exerted by state power on the individual (examples: the German Constitution before the 1918 revolution, and the USA, where the President and Congress have independent powers); (c) democracy, whose basic premise is monism of power and a denial in principle of the difference between power and the subject of power (popular sovereignty, exemplified by the German Republic); and (d) the class-corporative state and the Soviet system where as opposed to formal democracy, the people appear not as an atomized mass of isolated citizens but as a totality of organized and discrete collectives. [3]

This classification is very typical of the confusion which bourgeois scholars consciously introduce into the question of the state. Starting with the fact that the concept of dictatorship is interpreted in the formal legal sense, deprived of all class content, the bourgeois jurist deliberately avoids the question: the dictatorship of which class and directed against whom ? He blurs the distinction between the dictatorship of a small group of exploiters and the dictatorship of the overwhelming majority of the working people; he distorts the concept of dictatorship, for he cannot avoid defining it without a relevant law or paragraph, while “the scientific concept of dictatorship means nothing less than power resting directly upon force, unlimited by laws, and unconstricted by absolute rules”. [4] Further it is sufficient to indicate, for instance, that under the latter heading the author includes: (a) a new type of state, never encountered before in history, where power belongs to the proletariat; (b) the reactionary dreams of certain professors and so-called guild socialists, about the return to the corporations and shops of the Middle Ages; and, finally (c) the fascist dictatorship of capital which Mussolini exercises in Italy.

This respected scholar consciously introduces confusion, consciously ignores the concrete historical conditions under which the working people actually can exercise administration of the state, acting as organized collectives. But such conditions are only the proletarian revolution and the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat.

4. The class nature of law

Bourgeois science confuses the question of the essence of law no less than the question of the state. Here, Marxism-Leninism opposes the diverse majority of bourgeois, petit bourgeois and revisionist theories which, proceeding from the explanation of the historical and class nature of law, consider the state as a phenomenon essential to every human society. They thus transform law into a supra-historical category.

It is not surprising, therefore, that bourgeois philosophy of law serves as the main source for introducing confusion both into the concept of law and into the concept of state and society.

The bourgeois theory of the state is 90% the legal theory of the state. The unattractive class essence of the state, most often and most eagerly, is hidden by clever combinations of legal formalism, or else it is covered by a cloud of lofty philosophical legal abstractions.

The exposure of the class historical essence of law is not, therefore, an unimportant part of the Marxist-Leninist theory of society, of the state and of law.

The most widespread approach of bourgeois science to the solution of the question of the essence of law consists in the fact that it strives to embrace, through the concept of law, the existence of any consciously ordered human relationships, of any social rules, of any phenomenon of social authority or social power. Thus, bourgeois scholars easily transfer law to pre-class society, find it in the pre-state life of primitive tribes, and conclude that communism is unthinkable without law. They turn law as an empty abstraction into a universal concept devoid of historical content. Law, for bourgeois sociologists, becomes an empty form which is unconnected with concrete reality, with the relationships of production, with the antagonistic character of these relationships in class society, [and] with the presence of the state as a particular apparatus of power in the hands of the ruling class.

Representatives of idealist philosophy of law go still further. They begin with “the idea of law”, which stands above social history as something eternal, immutable and independent of space and time.

Here, for example, is the conclusion of one of the most important representatives of the ideological neo-Kantian philosophy of law – Stammler:

Through all the fates and deeds of man there extends a single unitary idea, the idea of law. All languages have a designation for this concept, and the direction of definitions and judgements expressed by it amount, upon careful study, to one and the same meaning.

Having made this discovery, it cost Stammler nothing “to prove” that regardless of the difference between the “life and activity of nations” and “the objects of legal consideration”, we observe the unity of the legal idea and its equal appearance and intervention.

This professorial rubbish is presented without the least attempt at factual proof In actuality it would be rather difficult to explain how this “unity of the legal idea and its equal appearance” gave birth to the laws of the Twelve Tablets of slave-owning Rome, the serf customs of the Middle Ages, the declarations of rights of capitalist democracies, and our Soviet Constitution.

But Stammler is not embarrassed by the scantiness of factual argument. He deals just as simply with the proof of the eternity of law. He begins from those legendary Cyclops described in the Odyssey; even these mythical wonders were the fathers of families and, according to Stammler, could not do without law. On the other hand, however, while Stammler is ready to admit that the pigmy tribes of Africa and the Eskimos did not know the state, he simply denies as deceptive all reports about peoples not knowing law. Moreover, Stammler immediately replaces the concrete historical consideration of the question with scholastic formal-logical tightrope walking, which among bourgeois professors is presented as a methodological precision. We present these conclusions, for they typify the whole trend and, moreover, are most fashionable in the West.

Stammler proposes that the concrete study of legal phenomena is entirely unable to provide anything in the understanding of the essence of law. For if we assign any phenomenon to the list of legal ones, this means that we already know that this is law and what its characteristics are. The definition of law which precedes the facts presupposes knowledge of what is law and what is not law. Accordingly, in the opinion of Stammler, in considering the concept of law, it is necessary to exclude all that is concrete and encountered in experience and to understand “that the legal idea is a purely methodological means for the ordering of spiritual life”.

This conclusion, which confronts one with its scholasticism, is nothing other than a Kantian ideological thesis embodied in the context of Stammler’s legal stupidity. It shows that the so-called forms of knowledge do not express the objective characteristics of matter, are determined a priori, and precede all human experience and its necessary conditions.

Having turned law into a methodological idea, Stammler tries to locate it not in the material world where everything is subordinate to the law of cause and effect, but in the area of goals. Law, according to Stammler, is a definition which proceeds not from the past (from cause to effect), but from the future (from goal to means). Finally, adding that law deals not with the internal procedure of thoughts as such, but with human interaction, Stammler gives this agonizing and thoroughly scholastic definition:

The concept of law is a pure form of thought. It methodically divides the endlessly differentiated material of human desires apprehended by the senses, and defines it as an inviolable and independent connecting will.

This professorial scholasticism has the attractive feature for the bourgeoisie that verbal and formalistic contrivances can hide the ugly reality of [their] exploiting society and exploiting law.

If law is “a pure form of thought”, then it is possible to avoid the ugly fact that the capitalist law of private property means the misery of unemployment, poverty and hunger for the proletarian and his family; and that in defence of this law stand police armed to the teeth, fascist bands, hangmen and prison guards; and that this law signifies a whole system of coercion, humiliation and oppression in colonies.

Such theories allow the disguising of the fact that the class interest of the bourgeoisie lies at the basis of bourgeois law. Instead of class law, philosophers such as Stammler dream up abstractions, “pure forms”, general human “ideas”, “whole and durable bonds of will” – and other entirely shameless things.

This philosophy of law is calculated to blunt the revolutionary class consciousness of the proletariat, and to reconcile it with bourgeois society and capitalist exploitation.

It is not without reason that the social fascists speak out as such zealous exponents of neo-Kantianism; it is not without reason that Social Democratic theorists on questions of law largely subscribe to neo-Kantian philosophy and re-hash the same Stammler in different ways.

In our Soviet legal literature, a rather wide dissemination has been achieved by bourgeois legal theories. In particular, there have been attempts to spread the idealist teaching of Stammler in the works of Pontovich and Popov-Ladyzhensky. The criticism and unmasking of this eructation is necessary for the purpose of eradicating this bourgeois ideological infection.

Thus, we know that the state is an historical phenomenon limited by the boundaries of class society. A state is a machine for the maintenance of the domination of one class over another. It is an organization of the ruling class, having at its disposal the most powerful means of suppression and coercion. Until the appearance of classes the state did not exist. In developed communism there will be no state.

In the same way as the state, law is inseparably tied to the division of society into classes. Every law is the law of the ruling class. The basis of law is the formulation and consolidation of the relationship to the means of production, owing to which in exploitative society, one part of the people can appropriate to itself the unpaid labour of another.

The form of exploitation determines the typical features of a legal system. In accordance with the three basic socio-economic formations of class society, we have three basic types of legal superstructure: slave-owning law, feudal law and bourgeois law. This of course does not exclude concrete historical national differences between each of the systems. For instance, English law is distinguished by many peculiarities in comparison with French bourgeois law as contained in the Napoleonic Code . Likewise, we do not exclude the presence of survivals of the past – transitional or mixed forms – which complicate the concrete picture.

However, the essential and basic – that which provides the guiding theme for the study of different legal institutions – is the difference between the position of the slave, the position of the serf and the position of the wage labourer. The relationship of exploitation is the basic lynchpin, around which all other legal relationships and legal institutions are arranged. From this it follows that the nature of property has decisive significance for each system of law. According to Lenge, the brilliant and cynical reactionary of the eighteenth century, the spirit of the laws is property.

5. Law as an historical phenomenon: definition of law

The appearance and withering away of law, similar to the appearance and withering of the state, is connected with two extremely important historical limitations. Law (and the state) appears with the division of society into classes. Passing through a long path of development, full of revolutionary leaps and qualitative changes, law and the state will wither away under communism as a result of the disappearance of classes and of all survivals of class society.

Nevertheless, certain authors, who consider themselves Marxists, adopt the viewpoint that law exists in pre-class society, that in primitive communism we meet with legal forms and legal relationships. Such a point of view is adopted for instance by Reisner. Reisner gives the term “law” to a whole series of institutions and customs of tribal society: marriage taboos and blood feud, customs regulating relationships between tribes, and customs relating to the use of the means of production belonging to a tribe. Law in this manner is transformed into an eternal institution, inherent to all forms of human society. From here it is just one step to the understanding of law as an eternal idea; and Reisner in essence leans towards such an understanding.

This viewpoint of course fundamentally contradicts Marxism. The customs of a society not knowing class divisions, property inequality and exploitation, differ qualitatively from the law and the statutes of class society. To categorize them together means to introduce an unlikely confusion. Every attempt to avoid this qualitative difference inevitably leads to scholasticism, to the purely external combination of phenomena of different types, or to abstract idealist constructs in the Stammlerian spirit.

We should not be confused by the fact that Engels, in The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State , uses the expression “the eternal law”; or, that he cites, without particular qualification, Morgan’s description of the member of a tribal community as having “equality of rights”, and of a person violating tribal customs as having placed himself “outside the law”.

It is clear that the terms “right” and “law” are used here not in their direct sense, but by analogy. This does not mean, however, that in classless society we will be dealing only with purely technical rules. Such an argument was put forward by Stuchka in his dispute with Reisner. To assign the customs and the norms of pre-class society to the area of technology would mean to give the concept of technology a very extended and undefined sense. Marriage prohibitions, customs relating to the organization of the tribe, the power of the elders, blood feud etc. – all this of course is not technology and not technical methods, but the customs and norms of social order. The content and character of these customs corresponded of course to the level of productive forces and the production relationships erected on it. These social forms should be considered as a superstructure upon the economic base. But the basic qualitative difference between this superstructure and the political and legal superstructures of class society, consists in the absence of property inequality, exploitation, and organized class coercion.

While Marxism strives to give a concrete historical meaning to law, the characteristic feature of bourgeois philosophers of law is, on the contrary, the conclusion that law in general is outside classes, outside any particular socio-economic formation. Instead of deriving a concept of law from the study of historical facts, bourgeois scholars are occupied with the concoction of theories and definitions from the empty concept or even the word “law”.

We already saw how Stammler, with the help of scholastic contrivances, tries to show that concrete facts have no significance for the definition of law. We, however, say the opposite. It is impossible to give a general definition of law without knowing the law of slave-owning, feudal and capitalist societies. Only by studying the law of each of these socio-economic formations can we identify those characteristics which are in fact most general and most typical. In doing so we must not forget Engels’ warning to those who tend to exaggerate the significance of these general definitions.

For example, in Chapter VI of the first part of Anti-Dühring , having given a definition of life, Engels speaks of the inadequacy of all definitions because they are necessarily limited to the most general and simplistic areas. In the preface to Anti-Dühring , Engels formulated this thought still more clearly, indicating that “the only real definition is the development of the essence of the matter, and that is not a definition”. However, Engels at once states that for ordinary practical use, definitions which indicate the most general and characteristic features of a category are very convenient. We cannot do without them. It is also wrong to demand more from a definition than it can give; it is wrong to forget the inevitability of its insufficiency.

These statements by Engels should be kept in mind in approaching any general definition, including a definition of law. It is necessary to remember that it does not replace, and cannot replace, the study of all forms and aspects of law as a concrete historical phenomenon. In identifying the most general and characteristic features we can define law as the form of regulation and consolidation of production relationships and also of other social relationships of class society; law depends on the apparatus of state power of the ruling class, and reflects the interests of the latter.

This definition characterizes the role and significance of law in class society. But it is nevertheless incomplete. In contradistinction to all normative theories – which are limited to the external and formal side of law (norms, statutes, judicial positions etc.) – Marxist-Leninist theory considers a law as a unity of form and content. The legal superstructure comprises not only the totality of norms and actions of agencies, but the unity of this formal side and its content, i.e. of the social relationships which law reflects and at the same time sanctions, formalizes and modifies. The character of formalization does not depend on the “free will of the legislator”; it is defined by economics, but on the other hand the legal superstructure, once having arisen, exerts a reflexive effect upon the economy.

This definition stresses three aspects of the matter. First is the class nature of law: every law is the law of the ruling class. Attempts to consider law as a social relationship which transcends class society, lead either to superficial categorization of diverse phenomena, or to speculative idealistic constructs in the spirit of the bourgeois philosophy of law. Second is the basic and determinant significance of production relationships in the content that is implemented by law. Class interests directly reflect their relationship to the means of production. Property relationships occupy the prominent place in the characterization of a specific legal order. Communist society, where classes disappear, where labour becomes the primary want, where the effective principle will be from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs: this does not require law. The third aspect consists of the fact that the functioning of a legal superstructure demands a coercive apparatus. When we say that social relationships have assumed a legal expression, this means inter alia that they have been given a coercive nature by the state power of the ruling class. Withering away of the law can only occur simultaneously with the withering away of the state.

Relationships which have received legal expression are qualitatively different from those relationships which have not received this expression. The form of this expression may be different, as was indicated by Engels [5] ; it may sometimes be good and sometimes be bad. It may support the progressive development of these relationships or, on the contrary, retard them. Everything depends on whether power is in the hands of a revolutionary or a reactionary class. Here the real significance of the legal superstructure appears. However, the degree of this reality is a question of fact; it can be determined only by concrete study and not by any a priori calculations. Bourgeois jurists characteristically concentrate their attention on form, and utterly ignore content. They turn their backs on life and actual history. As Engels showed, “they consider public and private law as independent areas, which have their own independent development and which must and may be subjected to independent systematic elaboration by the consistent elimination of all internal contradictions.” [6]

Bourgeois jurists usually define law as the totality of norms to which a state has given coercive power. This view of law typifies so-called legal positivism. The most consistent representatives of this trend are the English jurists: of the earliest Blackstone (eighteenth century), and thereafter Austin. In other European countries legal positivism also won itself a dominant position in the nineteenth century, because the bourgeoisie either gained state power or everywhere achieved sufficient influence in the state so as not to fear the identification of law with statute. At the same time nothing was better for legal professionals, for judges, [and] for defence counsel since this definition fully satisfied their practical needs. If law in its entirety was the complex of orders proceeding from the state, and consolidated by sanction in the case of disobedience, then the task of jurisprudence was defined with maximum clarity. The work of the jurist, according to the positivists, did not consist in justifying law from some external point of view – philosophers were occupied with this; the task of the jurists did not include explaining from where a norm emerged, and what determined its content – this was the task of political scientists and sociologists. The role of the jurist remained the logical interpretation of particular legal provisions, the establishment of an internal logical connection between them, combining them into larger systematic units in legal institutions, and finally in this way the creation of a system of law.

The definition of law as the totality of norms is the starting point for supporting the so-called dogmatic method. This consists of using formal logical conclusions in order to move from particular norms to more general concepts and back, proceeding from general positions to propose the solution of concrete legal cases or disputes. It is obvious that the practical part of this role developing especially luxuriantly in the litigious circumstances of bourgeois society – has nothing in common with a scientific theory of law. Applications of so-called legal logic are not only theoretically fruitless, they are not only incapable of revealing the essence of law and thus of showing its connection with other phenomena-with economics, with politics, with class struggle – but they are also harmful and impermissible in the practice of our Soviet courts and other state institutions. We need decisions of cases, not formally, but in their essence; the state of the working people, as distinct from the bourgeois state, does not hide either its class character or its goal – the construction of socialism. Therefore, the application of norms of Soviet law must not be based on certain formal logical considerations, but upon the consideration of all the concrete features of the given case, of the class essence of those relationships to which it becomes necessary to apply a general norm, and of the general direction on of the policy of Soviet power at the given moment. In the opposite case a result would be obtained which Lenin defined as: “Correct in form, a mockery in substance.”

The denial of formal legal logic cultivated by the bourgeoisie does not mean a denial of revolutionary legality, does not mean that judicial cases and questions of administration must be decided chaotically in the Soviet state, systematically on the basis of the random whims of individuals, or on the basis of local influences. The struggle for revolutionary legality is a struggle on two fronts: against legal formalism and the transfer to Soviet soil of bourgeois chicanery, and against those who do not understand the organizational significance of Soviet decrees as one of the methods of the uniform conduct of the policy of the dictatorship of the proletariat.

Thus, the law is the means of formulating and consolidating the production relationships of class society and the social relationships which are connected with them. In the legal superstructure, these relationships appear as property relations and as relations of domination and subordination. They appear, in particular, as relations of an ideological nature, i.e. as relations which are formed in connection with certain views and are supported by the conscious will of the people.

We shall not touch upon the question of the degree to which the legal ideology of the exploiting classes is capable of correctly reflecting reality, and in what measure it inevitably distorts it (representing the interest of the exploiting class as the social interest in order, legality, freedom etc.). Here, we merely emphasize the fact that without the work of legislators, judges, police and prison guards (in a word, of the whole apparatus of the class state), law would become a fiction. “Law is nothing without an apparatus capable of enforcing observation of the norms of law” (Lenin).

The conscious will – towards the formulation and consolidation of production and other relationships – is the will of the ruling class which finds its expression in custom, in law, in the activity of the court and in administration. The legal superstructure exists and functions because behind it stands an organization of the ruling class, namely the apparatus of coercion and power in the form of the army, the police, court bailiffs, prison guards and hangmen. This does not mean that the ruling class has to use physical force in every case. Much is achieved by simple threat, by the knowledge of helplessness and of the futility of struggle, by economic pressure, and finally by the fact that the working classes are in the ideological captivity of the exploiters. It is sufficient to mention the narcotic of the religious ideology of humility and meekness, or the genuflection before the idol of bourgeois legality preached by the reformist.

But the ultimate argument for, and the basis of, the legal order is always the means of physical force. Only by depending on them could the slaveowner of antiquity or the modern capitalist enjoy his right.

The attempts by certain bourgeois jurists to separate law from the state, or to contrast “law” and “force”, are dictated by the attempt to hide and conceal the class essence of law.

Often these proofs that law is independent of the state bear a truly laughable character. Thus, for instance, Stammler claims that he has proved this thesis relying on the fact that on a dirigible which flies over the North Pole, i.e. outside the sphere of action of any state power, the emergence of legal relationships is possible.

By such empty dogmatic chicanery the scientific question of the relationship of state and law is decided. Can one be surprised at Lenin’s sharp reaction to Stammler when he says that: “From stupid arguments, Stammler draws equally stupid conclusions.”

The dependence of law on the state, however, does not signify that the state creates the legal superstructure by its arbitrary will. For the state itself, as Engels says, is only a more or less complex reflection of the economic needs of the dominant class in production.

The proletariat, having overthrown the bourgeoisie and consolidated its dictatorship, had to create Soviet law in conformity with the economy, in particular the existence of many millions of small and very small peasant farms. After the victory of the proletarian revolution the realization of socialism is not an instantaneous act but a long process of construction under the conditions of acute class struggle.

From the policy of limiting its exploitative tendencies and the elimination of its front ranks, we moved to the policy of liquidating the kulaks as a class by widespread collectivization. A successful fulfilment of the first Five Year Plan; the creation of our own base for the technical reconstruction of the whole national economy; the transfer of the basic mass of the peasantry to collectivization; these events enabled the basic task of the second Five Year Plan to be:

the final liquidation of capitalist elements and classes in general, the full elimination of the causes of class differences and exploitation, the overcoming of the survivals of capitalism in the economy and the consciousness of the people, the transformation of the whole working population of the country into conscious and active builders of a classless society. [7]

At each of these stages Soviet law regulated and formulated production relationships differently.

Soviet law in each of the stages was naturally different from the law of capitalist states. For law under the proletarian dictatorship has always had the goal of protecting the interest of “the working majority, the suppression of class elements hostile to the proletariat, and the defence of socialist construction. Those individual Soviet jurists who considered law as the totality of norms (i.e. externally and formally) are not in a position to understand this. Finding identically formulated norms in the system of bourgeois and Soviet law, these jurists began to speak of the similarity between bourgeois and Soviet law, to search out “general” institutions, and to trace the development of certain “general” bases for bourgeois and Soviet law. This tendency was very strong in the first years of NEP. The identification of Soviet with bourgeois law derived from an understanding of NEP as a return to capitalism, which found expression in the Marxist ranks.

If NEP, as the Zinoviev opposition asserted at the XIVth Party Congress, is “capitalism which holds the proletarian state on a chain”, then Soviet law must be presented as bourgeois law, in which certain limitations are introduced, to the extent in the period of imperialism that the capitalist state also regulates and limits the freedom of disposition of property, contractual freedom etc.

Such a distortion in the description of NEP led directly to an alliance with bourgeois reformists in the understanding of Soviet law.

In fact, NEP “is a special policy of the proletarian state intended to permit capitalism while the commanding heights are held by the proletarian state, intended for the struggle between the capitalist and socialist elements, intended for the growth of the role of the socialist elements at the expense of the capitalist elements, intended for the victory of the socialist elements over the capitalist elements, intended for the elimination of classes and for the construction of the foundation of a socialist economy.” [8]

Soviet law as a special form of policy followed by the proletariat and the proletarian state, was intended precisely for the victory of socialism. As such, it is radically different from bourgeois law despite the formal resemblance of individual statutes.

Juridicial formalism, which conceives of nothing other than the norm and reduces law to the purely logical operation of these norms, appears as a variety of reformism, as a Soviet “juridical socialism”. By confining themselves only to the norm and the purely juridical (i.e. formal ideas and concepts), they ignored the socio-economic and political essence of the matter. As a result, these jurists arrive at the conclusion that the transformation of property from an arbitrary and unrestricted right into a “social function” (i.e. a tendency which is “peculiar to the law of the advanced”, that is, capitalist, countries), finds its “fullest” expression in Soviet legislation. Making this contention, the Jurists “forgot” such a trifle as the October Revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat.

It is not only important to “read” the norm, but also to know what class, what state, and what state apparatus is applying this norm.

6. Law and production relationships

Production relationships form the basis of society. It is necessary to begin with these relationships in order to comprehend the complex picture presented by the history of mankind.

To search for the basic characteristic of society and social relations in an area other than production relationships means to deprive oneself of the possibility of a scientific understanding of the laws of development of social formations. However, it by no means follows from this that, according to Marx, only relations of production and exchange are social relations. Such a concept is a caricature of Marxism. The equation of social relations with production relations in this case is understood purely mechanically. However, a number of times Lenin noted that Marx’s great service was that he did not limit himself to the description of the economic “skeleton” of capitalist society, but that:

in explaining the construction and development of a definite social formation “exclusively” by production relations, he nonetheless thoroughly and constantly studied the superstructure corresponding to these production relations, which clothed the skeleton with flesh and blood. The reason that Das Kapital had such enormous success was that this book (“by a German economist”) showed the capitalist social formation as a living thing-with its everyday aspects, with the actual social phenomena essential to the production relations between antagonistic classes, with the bourgeois political superstructure protecting the domination of the capitalist class, with the bourgeois ideas of freedom, equality etc., with bourgeois family relations. [9]

Stuchka looks differently at the matter. In his opinion, Marx considered only relations of production and exchange to be social relations. But this would mean affirming that Marx limited himself to the “skeleton” alone, as if having indicated the basic and eventually determinant in social life and social relations he then passed by that which is derivative and requires explanation. However, more than once Marx directly points out the existence of social relationships which are not production relations but which merely derive from them and correspond to them. Characterizing revolutionary proletarian socialism in France in 1848, Marx wrote:

This socialism is the proclamation of the permanence of the revolution , a proclamation of the class dictatorship of the proletariat as a necessary transition toward the elimination of class differences altogether, toward the elimination of all production relations upon which these differences are based, toward the elimination of all social relationships corresponding to these production relations, toward a revolution in the entire world of ideas arising from these relationships. [10]

Nevertheless, Comrade Stuchka firmly defends his understanding of the term “social relationships”:

We proceed from social relationships; I emphasize the word “social”, for here my critics are desperately confused. I thus selected the word “social” and a whole chapter in my first book was dedicated to it only in the sense of relations of production and exchange (as Marx and every Marxist understands this). [11]

Proceeding from the equation of production and social relationships, Stuchka defined law as a “system (or order) of social relations corresponding to the interests of the ruling class and protected by its organized force”. In this definition, as he himself indicated, there was room only for the law of property and the law of obligations.

As earlier, so even now [he wrote] I consider basic law , law in general, to be civil law , understanding thereby the form of organization of social relationships in the narrow and specific sense of the word (i.e. relations of production and exchange). I consider that all the remaining areas of law are either of a subordinate or derivative character, and that only bourgeois law (subjecting to its influence all the remaining areas of law) created a legal state, or state law and criminal law, as an equivalent norm for crime and punishment, not even mentioning administrative, financial etc., and finally international law or even the law of war. [12]

The positions outlined in this excerpt contain a series of mistakes. There is no doubt that the formulation and conformation of social relationships to the means of production is basic to law. Proceeding from the economic basis, from different forms of exploitation, we differentiate slaveowning, feudal and capitalist systems of law. But, in the first place, it is incorrect to subsume the property relations of slaveowning or feudal society under the concept of civil, i.e. bourgeois, law as “law in general”. In the second place, state law may not be equated with the so-called Rechtsstaat of the bourgeoisie. If one takes this point of view then one must either deny the existence of a distinctive feudal state law, or show that despite the existence of a Soviet state we do have Soviet state law. At the same time, in other places in his textbook, Stuchka proceeds from the existence of different class systems of law: feudal, bourgeois, Soviet. Here he argues for a “general law” which is equated with the civil law of bourgeois society. At the same time state law is equated with the theory of bourgeois jurists of the so-called Rechtsstaat , and criminal law (i.e. formalized class repression) with the ideology of equivalent retribution.

The basic question – do relationships exist that enter into the content of law, which are not, however, relations of production and exchange? – is avoided by Stuchka; he cites the subsidiary, derivative etc. character of state, criminal etc. law. However, it is clear that the structure of family relationships, the formalization of class domination in the state organization, the formalization of class repression, all this is embraced by the different branches of law (family, state and criminal).

The content of this legal intermediary is the social and political relationships which, in the final analysis, are reducible to the same production relationships, but by no means correspond to them.

Stuchka’s subsequent definition of law suffers from the shortcoming that he limits the area of law merely to production relations. This definition also introduces confusion because it confuses law with economics. Proceeding from the indisputable position that not all which is stated in a norm (in a statute) is realized in fact, Stuchka has made the incorrect conclusion that law is indeed the very relation of production and exchange. Stuchka has therefore declared Marx’s teaching – that law is an ideological superstructure to be a tribute to the “volitional theory” of the old jurists.

Whoever has mastered the form of theorizing of Marx and Engels that capital, money etc., are social relationships, will at once understand my views on the system of social relationships. This will be hardest of all for a jurist for whom law is a purely technical and artificial superstructure, strangely enough, holding sway over its base. Even Karl Marx gave a small tribute to this concept when he spoke of law as an ideological superstructure. But Marx was raised on Roman law and in general on the juridic concepts of the 1830s, considering it an expression “of the general will” ( Volkswillen ), and he was [therefore] accustomed to its terminology. [13]

In conducting the struggle with the narrow, formal legal concept of law as a totality of norms, we cannot deny the real existence of the legal superstructure, i.e. of relationships formulated and consolidated by the conscious will of the ruling class. Only to the extent that this process of formulation and consolidation proceeds may one speak of law. To study law only as totality of norms means to follow the path of formalism and dogmatism. But to study law only as relationships of production and exchange means to confuse law with economics, to retard the understanding of the reciprocal action of the legal superstructure and its active role. At the same time as production relations are imposed on people regardless of their will, legal relationships are impossible without the participation of the conscious will of the ruling class. The teaching of Marx, Engels and Lenin on law as an ideological superstructure needs no correction. Law cannot be understood unless we consider it as the basic form of the policy of the ruling class. In the later editions of The Revolutionary Role of State and Law , Stuchka supplemented his definition of law, developing the theory of the so-called three forms of law. The first, or in Stuchka’s words, the concrete form of law, is a legal relationship which corresponds to a production relationship and, with it, constitutes the base [or] reality. On the contrary, the two “abstract” forms – statute and legal ideology as Stuchka expresses it – are the essence of “the manifest superstructure”. [14]

This approach is also incorrect and non-dialectical. A legal relationship is a form of production relations because the active influence of the class organization of the ruling class transforms the factual relationship into a legal one, gives it a new quality, and thus includes it in the construction of the legal superstructure. This result is not achieved automatically by laissez faire , in the same way that prices are established under free competition. Even in the case of so-called customary law, the ruling class – through its special agencies, through the courts – ensures that the relations correspond to obligatory rules. This is all the more true with respect to the legislative creation of norms.

In particular, the revolutionary role of the legal superstructure is enormous in the transitional period when its active and conscious influence upon production and other social relationships assumes exceptional significance. Soviet law, like any law, will cease to exist if it is not applied. But the application of law is an active and conscious process by which the state apparatus plays the decisive role as a powerful weapon of class struggle. Would it be possible, for instance, to speak of Soviet law which did not somehow recognize the Soviet state, the Soviet agencies of power, Soviet courts etc.? It is clear that while an individual statute may be removed from the real legal order and remain a pious wish, concrete legal relationships may never be removed from the consciousness and will of the ruling class, may never be transferred from the superstructure to the base without parting from the heart of historical materialism.

From all that has been said above it is clear that the definition of law as a formal intermediary of the economy must be recognized as insufficient and incorrect. The different branches of law are connected differently with the economy; this must never be forgotten, and this is not expressed in the above-mentioned definition. On the contrary it can lead to the notion that the area of law is limited to property relationships alone. Then all the other types of law must be declared non-existent. Stuchka would, in fact, have had to reach this conclusion. But he speaks of criminal and state law, not entirely consistently with his other position, i.e. by referring to them he recognizes their existence.

There is no doubt that economics is at the base of political, familial and all other social relations. [15] But the election law of any capitalist country facilitates the economy differently from civil law or the Criminal Code. To try to force all the varied branches of law into one formula is to give preference to empty abstractions.

Law as a formal facilitation of social and (primarily) production relationships must be studied concretely. This study may not be replaced with ready citations from Hegel with respect to the “transformation of form into substance and substance into form”. The dialectical method, which teaches that every truth is concrete, becomes in this instance its own opposite-dead scholasticism, barren arguments and disputes on the theme that “form is not without content and content not without form”. However, the matter really consists of showing the role and character of law as form in specific and concrete branches of law and concrete historial conditions with a relation to concrete content. Only in this manner can the real relation of form and content be established and can one be convinced that it is far from identical in different instances. Often legal form hides economic content directly contrary to it (thus in the period when we conducted the policy of restricting the kulak, the leasing of a horse or tools by a poor peasant to a rich one often hid the sale of the first’s labour power to the second). A transaction of purchase and sale can hide the most diverse economic content. The same could be said about any other relationships within the so-called law of obligations. Here we meet with a phenomenon whose form is relatively indifferent to its content, but it is improper to conclude from this that in civil law we have a “faceless instrumentality” which must be used independently of the economic class content of the relationships which it implements. On the contrary, the significance of form is recognized only through content, through economics, through politics and through relations between classes.

Therefore, it is a flagrant error to equate law as an historical phenomenon – including various class systems – with the totality of those features of bourgeois law that derive from the exchange of commodities of equal value. [16] Such a concept of law minimizes the class coercion essential to bourgeois law, essential to feudal law and to all law. Law in bourgeois society serves not only the facilitation of exchange, but simultaneously and mainly supports and consolidates the unequal distribution of property and the monopoly of the capitalist in production. Bourgeois property is not exhausted by the relationships between commodity owners. These [owners – eds. ] are tied by exchange and the contractual relationship is the form of this exchange. Bourgeois property includes in a masked form the same relationship of domination and subordination which, in feudal property, appears chiefly as personal subordination.

This methodological mistake was related to the relegation of the class repressive role of law, and to an incorrect presentation of the relation between state and law (the state as the guarantor of exchange), and to mistakes in questions of morality (the denial of proletarian morality) and in questions of criminal law.

The attempts to distinguish between formal characteristics and abstract legal concepts expressing the relationship between commodity owners, and to proclaim this “form of law” as the subject of the Marxist theory of law, should be recognized as grossly mistaken. This paves the way to the separation of form and content, and diverts theory from the task of socialist construction to scholasticism.

The immediate relation, in practice, between the proletariat (as the ruling class) and law (as a weapon with whose help the tasks of class struggle at any given stage are decided) is in this case replaced by the abstract theoretical denial of the “narrow horizons of bourgeois law” in the name of developed communism.

From this perspective Soviet law is seen exclusively as a legacy of class society imposed on the proletariat and which haunts it until the second phase of communism. The abstract theoretical exposure of “bourgeois” law hides the task of the concrete analysis of Soviet law at different stages of the revolution. Accordingly, it gives insufficient concrete indication of the practical struggle against bourgeois influences, and against opportunist distortions of the Party’s general line on Soviet law.

The theoretical mistake of exaggerating the importance of market relations can be the basis for right opportunist conclusions about always preserving the bourgeois forms of law corresponding to private exchange. Conversely, to ignore exchange in considering the problems of Soviet law leads to “leftist” positions about the withering away of law which is now in the process of socializing the means of production, and about the withering away of economic accountability and the principle of payment according to labour, i.e. to the defence of the elimination of individual responsibility and wage egalitarianism.

Top of the page

1. K. Marx, Letter to Weydemeyer (March 5, 1852), MESW , vol.1, p.528.

2. V. I. Lenin, The Economic Content of Narodnism (1895), LCW , vol.1, p.419.

3. See Kellreiter’s article The State ;, in D. Elster et al. (eds), Handwörterbuch der Rechtswissenschaft (1923), Fischer, Jena, p.599.

4. V.I. Lenin, A Contribution to the History of the Question of Dictatorship (1920), LCW , vol.31, p.353.

5. F. Engels, Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy (1888), MESW , vol.3, p.371.

6. ibid. , p.371.

7. From a resolution of the XVIIth Party Conference (1932).

8. J. Stalin, The Fourteenth Congress of the CPSU (1925), Stalin: Works, Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow (1954), vol.7, p.374.

9. V.I. Lenin, What the “Friends of the People” Are (1894), LCW , vol.1, pp.141-42.

10. K. Marx, The Class Struggles in France (1850), MESW , vol.1, p.282.

11. P.I. Stuchka, A Course on Soviet Civil Law (1927), Communist Academy, vol.1, p.13.

12. ibid. , pp.78-79.

13. P.I. Stuchka, The Revolutionary Role of Law and State (1921), Moscow, p.15.

14. ibid. (3rd edition); and P.I. Stuchka’s article Law in Encyclopaedia of State and Law, (1925-1927), vol.3, pp.415-430.

15. “The state and law are determined by economic relations. Of course, the same must be said of civil law whose role in essence consists of the legislative clarification of the existing economic relations between individuals which are normal in the given circumstances” F. Engels, Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy (1888), op. cit. p.370.

16. This erroneous conception was developed in E.B. Pashukanis, The General Theory of Law and Marxism (1927), 3rd edition. See also E.B. Pashukanis, The Situation on the Legal Theory Front , Soviet State and the Revolution of Law (1930), no.11-12; and For a Marxist-Leninist Theory of State and Law (1931) Moscow, where a critique of this mistaken conception is given.  

Last updated on 13.5.2004