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English
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Published:
2021-10-12
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2021-10-12
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Legal Worldbuilding Guide

Summary:

You’re worldbuilding, and you need a legal system.

Or more accurately (probably), you’re writing a fic that may not be about law, but which might be law-adjacent. Something like casefic, or maybe your characters are going through a separation, or pretty much anything involving deep political intrigue. And you want to make sure your fic hits that critical suspension of disbelief threshold, and you want some nice, tasty details to throw in to make your readers salivate.

This is a guide on how to do that.

Chapter 1: Introduction

Chapter Text

I: Introduction

You’re worldbuilding, and you need a legal system.

Or more accurately (probably), you’re writing a fic that may not be about law, but which might be law-adjacent. Something like casefic, or maybe your characters are going through a separation, or pretty much anything involving deep political intrigue. And you want to make sure your fic hits that critical suspension of disbelief threshold, and you want some nice, tasty details to throw in to make your readers salivate.

This is remarkably both easier and harder than one would think. On one hand, the law is broader and more flexible than most people believe; most of the legal scenes shown in English media are based in common law, but common law systems aren’t the only ones out there. There are many options, ones that tie the law closer to politics, or to religion, or to something else—but the environment the law develops in informs the legal system, so get a detail wrong and people might well be thinking, well, that feels weird without knowing why. Or, you know, hit the other end of the spectrum and something makes so little sense that your readers are jarred right out of suspension of disbelief.

This guide is fairly basic, and my goal here is to not to tell you what to do, but to give you ideas for what your legal system might look like based on real life systems. Really, this is about learning the right questions to ask when setting up your imaginary legal system, and not about telling you what your legal system should look like. Feel free to jump through the topics in the table of contents at your own pleasure, and happy worldbuilding!

 

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Foundations: Common Law vs. Civil Law
    1. How Law Is Made
    2. Common Law
    3. Civil Law
    4. Other Legal Systems
  3. The Legal Profession
    1. Terminology
    2. Pathways to the Profession
    3. Common Practice Settings
  4. Court Processes: What do trials look like?
    1. The Role of the Lawyer, the Judges and the Jury (And Clerks!)
    2. Court Procedure
    3. The Sexy Shit: Challenging a Law
  5. Specific Areas
    1. Criminal Law
    2. Civil Law
  6. The Fun Shit: Worldbuilding Tutorial
    1. Step-by-Step Guide
    2. Historical Settings
    3. Fantasy Settings
    4. Science Fiction Settings