Law is a discipline and profession concerned with practices, sets of rules and customs that are recognized as binding by the community and enforced through a controlling authority. It is viewed from various points of view, including societal viewpoints on justice, morality and order, and judicial viewpoints of law as an instrument for correcting injustice.
Legal systems vary widely from nation to nation, reflecting a combination of the influences of culture and history, as well as political realities and power relationships. Laws can be made by legislatures resulting in statutes; by executive administration through decrees and regulations; or by judges’ decisions, which form the basis of precedent in common law jurisdictions. The law may also be shaped by constitutions, written or unwritten, and the rights encoded in them.
In the modern world, lawyers achieve a distinct professional identity through specified legal procedures and gain recognition as practitioners of law by earning the right to practice (admitted to the bar). The legal profession is also regulated in many jurisdictions. The legal system of most nations consists of courts that interpret, defend and apply the law to specific cases as they are presented in the courtroom. In the United States, the law consists of federal and state statutes, constitutional laws, regulations, and judicial decisions, along with a complex body of case law. Six non-state territories also produce their own laws, supervised by the Congress. These include American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
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