36 Legal terminology stubs

The doctrine of acts of independent significance at common law permits a testator to effectively change the disposition of his property without changing a will, if acts or events changing the disposition have some significance beyond avoiding the requirements of the will.

The administrator of an estate is a legal term referring to a person appointed by a court to administer the estate of a deceased person who left no will. Where a person dies intestate, i.e., without a will, the court may appoint a person to settle their debts, pay any necessary taxes and funeral expenses, and distribute the remainder according to the procedure set down at law. Such a person is known as the administrator of the estate and will enjoy similar powers to those of an executor under a will. A female administrator may be referred to as an administratrix, although this sex-specific term is old.

Alluvion, is a Roman law method of acquisition of heritable property (land). The typical cause is sediment (alluvium) deposited by a river. This sediment, legally termed the accessory, accreses a piece of land, the principal, and thus accedes to the ownership of the principal land over time.

Anonymous works are works, such as art or literature, that have an anonymous, undisclosed, or unknown creator or author. In the case of very old works, the author's name may simply be lost over the course of history and time. There are a number of reasons anonymous works arise.

Anpartsselskab is the Danish term for a private limited company. ApS, when appended to the end of a Danish company name, is similar to Ltd. after the name of a British company. An ApS is required to have capital of at least 40 000 DKK.

An Anti-alienation clause is a provision in the governing document for an arrangement such as a trust that specifies that the beneficial or equitable owner of the property held in that arrangement cannot transfer the interest to a third party. This rule is an exception to the general rule in property law that favors free alienability.

Assize is a word sometimes used in Scots law to mean a trial by jury.

Attribution, in copyright law, is acknowledgment as credit to the copyright holder or author of a work. If a work is under copyright, there is a long tradition of the author requiring attribution while directly quoting portions of work created by that author.

A beach bum trust provision, in the law of trusts, ties the ability of a trust beneficiary to take from the trust to the beneficiary's own earnings.

Bench used in a legal context can have several meanings. First, it can simply indicate the location in a courtroom where a judge sits. Second, the term bench is a metonym used to describe members of the judiciary collectively, or the judges of a particular court, such as the Queen's Bench or the Common Bench in England and Wales, or the federal bench in the United States. Third, the term is used to differentiate judges, who are referred to as "the bench", from attorneys or barristers, who are referred to as "the bar". The phrase "bench and bar" denotes all judges and lawyers collectively. The term "full bench" is used when all the judges of a certain court sit together to decide a case, as in the phrase "before the full bench", which is also referred to as "en banc".

A blind trust is a trust in which the trust beneficiaries have no knowledge of the holdings of the trust, and no right to intervene in their handling. In a blind trust, the trustees have full discretion over the assets. Blind trusts are generally used when a trust creator wishes for the beneficiary to be unaware of the specific assets in the trust, such as to avoid conflict of interest between the beneficiary and the investments.

In law, a committal procedure is the process by which a defendant is charged with a serious offence under the criminal justice systems of all common law jurisdictions except the United States. The committal procedure, sometimes known as a preliminary hearing, replaces the earlier grand jury process.

In international law, consularization is the act of authenticating any legal document by the consul office, by the consul signing and affixing a red ribbon to the document. International trade shipments often require consular invoices and other documents that may need to be consularized include travel documents, letters of credit, and powers of attorney.

A contract of sale, sales contract, sales order, or contract for sale is a legal contract for the purchase of assets by a buyer from a seller for an agreed upon value in money.

Cover is a term used in the law of contracts to describe a remedy available to a buyer who has received an anticipatory repudiation of a contract for the receipt of goods. Under the Uniform Commercial Code, the buyer is permitted to find another source of the same type of goods. The buyer may then file a lawsuit against the breaching seller to recover the difference, if any, between the cost of the goods offered and the cost of the goods actually purchased.

Disownment occurs when a parent renounces or no longer accepts a child as a family member, usually when the child does something that is perceived as unbecoming and those actions lead to serious emotional consequences. Different from giving a child up for adoption, it is a social and interpersonal act and usually takes place later in the child's life, which means that the disowned child would have to make their own arrangements for future care. Among other things, it implies no responsibility for future care, making it similar to divorce or repudiation, meaning that the disowned child would have to find another residence to call home and be cared for.

The duty of loyalty is often called the cardinal principal of fiduciary relationships, but is particularly strict in the law of trusts. In that context, the term refers to a trustee's duty to administer the trust solely in the interest of the beneficiaries, and following the terms of the trust. It generally prohibits a trustee from engaging in transactions that might involve self-dealing or even an appearance of conflict of interest. Furthermore, it requires a fiduciary to deal with transparency regarding material facts known to them in interactions with beneficiaries.

Hardship clause is a clause in a contract that is intended to cover cases in which unforeseen events occur that fundamentally alter the equilibrium of a contract resulting in an excessive burden being placed on one of the parties involved.

In law, a hearing is a proceeding before a court or other decision-making body or officer, such as a government agency or a legislative committee.

An honorary trust, under the law of trusts, is a device by which a person establishes a trust for which there is neither a charitable purpose, nor a private beneficiary to enforce the trust. While such a trust would normally be void for lack of a beneficiary, many jurisdictions have carved out two specific exceptions to this rule: trusts for the care of that person's pets; and trusts to provide for the maintenance of cemetery plots.

An implied-in-fact contract is a form of an implied contract formed by non-verbal conduct, rather than by explicit words. The United States Supreme Court has defined "an agreement 'implied in fact'" as "founded upon a meeting of minds, which, although not embodied in an express contract, is inferred, as a fact, from conduct of the parties showing, in the light of the surrounding circumstances, their tacit understanding."

Incapacitation in the context of criminal sentencing philosophy is one of the functions of punishment. It involves capital punishment, sending an offender to prison, or possibly restricting their freedom in the community, to protect society and prevent that person from committing further crimes. Incarceration, as the primary mechanism for incapacitation, is also used as to try to deter future offending.

In law, incorporation by reference is the act of including a second document within another document by only mentioning the second document. This act, if properly done, makes the entire second document a part of the main document. Incorporation by reference is often found in laws, regulations, contracts, legal and regulated documentation.

Legal mobilisation is a tool available to paralegal and advocacy groups, to achieve legal empowerment by supporting a marginalized issues of a stakeholder, in negotiating with the other concerned agencies and other stakeholders, by strategic combined use of legal processes along with advocacy, media engagement and social mobilisation. As per Frances Kahen Zemans (1983) the Legal mobilisation is "a desire or want, which is translated into a demand as an assertion of one's rights".

A legatee, in the law of wills, is any individual or organization bequeathed any portion of a testator's estate.

An officiant is someone who officiates at a service or ceremony, such as marriage, burial, or namegiving/baptism.

In common law jurisdictions, a personal representative or legal personal representative is a person appointed by a court to administer the estate of another person. If the estate being administered is that of a deceased person, the personal representative is either an executor if the deceased person left a will or an administrator of an intestate estate. In other situations, the personal representative may be a guardian or trustee, or other position. As a fiduciary, a personal representative has the duties of loyalty, candor or honesty, and good faith. In the United States, punctilio of honor, or the highest standard of honor, is the level of scrupulousness that a fiduciary must abide by.

A residuary estate, in the law of wills, is any portion of the testator's estate that is not specifically devised to someone in the will, or any property that is part of such a specific devise that fails. It is also known as a residual estate or simply residue.

Simultaneous death is a problem of inheritance which occurs when two people die at, or very near, the same time, and at least one of them is entitled to part or all of the other's estate on their death. This is usually the result of an un-natural death occurring from events such as an accident, a homicide, or a murder-suicide.

In historical English law, a sturdy beggar was a person who was fit and able to work, but begged or wandered for a living instead. The Statute of Cambridge 1388 was an early law which differentiated between sturdy beggars and the infirm poor. The Vagabonds and Beggars Act 1494 listed restrictions and punishments. In the 1530s and into the 1540s many English monasteries were closed, reducing resources available to the poor, and the Vagabonds Act of 1531 empowered justices of the peace to issue licences to those unable to work, making begging by persons able to work a crime. Sometimes men willing to work but unable to find work were lumped into the same category.

A testamentary disposition is any gift of any property by a testator under the terms of a will.

A testator is a person who has written and executed a last will and testament that is in effect at the time of his/her death. It is any "person who makes a will."

A Totten trust is a form of trust in the United States in which one party places money in a bank account or security with instructions that upon the settlor's death, whatever is in that account will pass to a named beneficiary. For example, a Totten trust arises when a bank account is titled in the form "[depositor], in trust for [beneficiary]".

Treating is the act of serving food, drink, and other refreshments in order to influence people and to gain benefits not easily obtained in the free market. It began as a political term, and came to be used elsewhere.

A contract is an agreement enforceable by law.A void agreement is one which cannot be enforced by law. Sometimes an agreement which is enforceable by law, i.e, a contract, can become void. Void agreements are different from voidable contracts, which are contracts that may be nullified.However, when a contract is being written and signed, there is no automatic mechanism available in every situation that can be utilized to detect the validity or enforceability of that contract. Practically, a contract can be declared to be void by a court of law.

A will contract is a term used in the law of wills describing a contract to exchange a current performance for a future bequest. In such an agreement, one party will provide some performance in exchange for a promise by the other party to make a specific bequest to the promisee party in the testator's will. Most jurisdictions recognize such contracts as valid, although a few hold them as void against public policy. Some jurisdictions will not recognize an oral contract for such a purpose, requiring instead that the contract be executed in writing and signed by both parties. Some jurisdictions require full compliance with the Statute of Wills to be effective, i.e., in writing and signed in the presence of two witnesses.