Understanding America’s Federal Legal Language

Types of Federal Laws and How To Easily Access Them

Americans take great pride in saying that our nation is a nation of laws, not people. But resting on this laurel is dangerous. Laws are written, enacted, interpreted, changed, and enforced (or not) by people. To safeguard our legal legacy, we need at least a basic understanding of federal legal language and the types of federal laws within the US legal system. This includes identifying laws, where to find them, how to access them, and what they consist of.

For example, there are approximately 15,000 Executive Orders, including those numbered sequentially and unnumbered, starting from Abraham Lincoln’s first term and going forward from there. A single name and number identify the vast majority, and it is clear which have been revoked, suspended, or expired. With the help of artificial intelligence (AI) and/or machine learning (ML), we can quickly aggregate them, giving easy access to the general public and professionals.

By comparison, the American federal legal system has convoluted and imprecise laws. It’s a mess. It’s hard to think that AI and ML can be of any meaningful help given an almost total lack of inference, consistency, probabilities, and source material. So, for now, we continue to slog.

The average citizen needs to understand some basics of federal legal language, especially business owners who may run into legal issues or have to adapt to changes in federal law that may affect taxes, securities, intellectual property, and more.

The 4 Types of Federal Laws

How many US laws are there in the federal legal system? No one knows, which is astounding! Some estimate that there are about 20,000, based on the average number of laws passed in each session of Congress since 1789, but this remains an unproven hypothesis. If ‘what gets measured gets managed,’ as the meme goes, our system of laws goes unmanaged.

There are four types of federal laws: public law, private law, joint resolutions, and common law (or case law). Common laws originate in the judicial system, interpret existing Acts of Congress, and set precedents.

Public Law

Public law applies generally to the public at large. It often comes into public view through the courts, Congress, and the media. Public laws include, but are not limited to, constitutional, administrative, tax, criminal, and procedural law.

Private Law

Broadly speaking, private law concerns private individuals, property, and relationships. It almost never comes to the public’s attention, and, in fact, many law firms do not aggregate it. Most prefer to stay focused on users’ needs rather than irrelevant data.

Joint Resolution

Most importantly, Congress issues Joint Resolutions to declare war and amend the Constitution. Otherwise, joint resolutions authorize small appropriations, continuing resolutions, and other minor procedural and temporary measures.

Congress designates joint resolutions as public laws. They are enacted similarly to public laws and carry the force of law, further confusing the legal nomenclature. Congress issues plenty of joint resolutions, but they rarely rise to the level of broad public interest.

Common Law

Common law (also referred to as ‘case law’) is a function of the US judiciary system, separate from Congress but integral to it. Important common law decisions are called ‘landmarks.’ These significantly affect existing laws. Landmark decisions are most often made by the US Supreme Court.

How Are Laws Named?

This is where federal legal language gets complicated. In the American federal legal system, each type of law (public law, private law, joint resolution, common law) requires a particular, formulaic name, including both a long and short title.

Long Title

In most cases, a law is given a ‘long title.’ This can often run to an entire paragraph, and long titles are rarely cited by members of Congress, lawyers, judges, or the media. While rarely used, this is the law’s official name.

…And for Other Purposes

This ubiquitous phrase is commonly tacked on to the end of a law’s long title. It means that other laws may be patched into that law, sometimes completely unrelated. While the reasons for this strange practice are not spelled out, it typically allows legislators to do some horse trading, i.e. ‘I’ll vote for your bill if you add mine to it.’ The Affordable Care Act is a good example. It is home to at least four other significant pieces of legislation, which means that all five laws have the same public law number. Thus, legislators give themselves flexibility in the horse trade, but at the cost of further muddying the legal landscape.

Short Title

Most American federal laws include a ‘short title’ that may be cited — or not. As a consequence, a single law can go by several names. The Affordable Care Act (ACA) is a good example. It is also called the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), also referred to as ‘Obamacare’ in the media. This has led to confusion among large segments of the public. When reporters randomly interviewed people on the street, many reacted with disbelief that Obamacare and the ACA are the same. Some of this confusion is a natural reaction to confusing nomenclature, but often, it is the result of willful disinformation.

A Better Roadmap to Grasping Federal Legal Language

The United States Legal System needs to clarify and simplify access and bring transparency to the process. Still, until that happens, firms and companies have designed websites and other digital tools to usher the public into the federal legal language as easily as possible. The Financial Poise Glossary lists several relevant legal, business, and finance terms, and the DailyDAC Glossary is a great source for bankruptcy lingo and other related legal terms.

There you have it — an expert short course on how to outsmart the barriers to accessing laws. While it is possible to learn ‘what,’ discovering ‘why’ is much more complex. This is often the result of barriers constructed from almost 230 years of piling up laws upon laws, political maneuvering, and bureaucrats designing systems for the benefit of bureaucrats, not citizens.

As you can see, aggregating the US federal legal system is no easy task. It’s a slog, full of inconsistencies, unknowns, gaps, and obscurities. However, a legal degree isn’t necessarily required to access the laws and understand federal legal language. Laws are at the bedrock of our democracy and way of life; the ability to easily, quickly, and accurately access them is key to engaging both average citizens and professionals.

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[Editors’ Note: To learn more about this and related topics, you may want to attend the following on-demand webinars (which you can listen to at your leisure, and each includes a comprehensive customer PowerPoint about the topic):

1. Intellectual Property 101 / Leveraging & Protecting Trade Secrets in the 21st Century
2. Federal Equity Receiverships / Key Concepts and Strategies in Federal Receiverships
3. Intellectual Property 101/ Copyrights, Patents, and Trademarks…Oh My!

This article was originally published on April 27, 2018 and updated on July 1, 2023.] 

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