Law is the set of rules that a nation or society recognizes as regulating the actions of its members. It serves a wide range of purposes, including keeping the peace, maintaining the status quo, preserving individual rights, protecting minorities against majorities, promoting social justice, and providing for orderly social change.
Definitions of Law:
Legal systems vary from country to country and community to community, but all share the same common goals of governing behavior. Some serve these goals better than others.
Some common areas of law include criminal, civil, and administrative. There are also specialized fields, such as immigration and nationality law.
Jurisdiction – the authority of a court to hear and decide a case, usually granted by state or federal law. Concurrent jurisdiction exists when two courts have the same authority to hear and decide a particular issue.
Appeal – A request made after a trial asking another court (usually the court of appeals) to decide whether the trial was conducted properly.
In a broader sense, the word “law” may mean any of several things, from an expression of a consistent reality to a scientific rule that someone has invented to explain a natural process.
Salmond defines law as the expression of a consistent reality, such as the fact that if you throw something up in the air it will come down. However, the reality imposed by the law might not be consistent, in which case the law ceases to be law and the thing that was thrown up becomes something else.