305 articles
Joan C. Williams
Joan C. Williams is a law professor at UC Law San Francisco who founded the Center for WorkLife Law and is known for concepts like the maternal wall.
Kabushiki gaisha
Kabushiki gaisha (株式会社, K.K.), Japan's joint-stock corporation under the Companies Act: shareholders hold transferable shares with limited liability, directors manage, and it is the only corporate form that can be publicly listed, unlike the Godo Kaisha (G.K.).
Kirkland & Ellis
Kirkland & Ellis LLP, founded 1909 in Chicago, is an international law firm and Am Law 100 #1 by revenue; in fiscal 2025 it became the first law firm above $10 billion ($10.556B, 4,145 lawyers), with about 4,000 attorneys in 24 cities and a nearly 1,200-lawyer litigation practice.
Know your customer
Know your customer (KYC) is the identity-verification and risk-assessment process, part of customer due diligence, that financial institutions use to identify customers, verify beneficial owners (typically at a 25 percent ownership threshold), and apply risk-based anti-money laundering controls.
L-1 visa
The L-1 visa is a US nonimmigrant visa for intracompany transferees, split into L-1A (managers, executives, 7 years) and L-1B (specialized knowledge, 5 years), created in 1970, with no annual cap and dual intent.
Labour law
Labour law: the legislation and regulations defining employers' and workers' rights, individually and collectively. Also called employment law. Covers the employment relationship, collective bargaining, ILO standards since the 1919 Treaty of Versailles, and labour law reform assistance.
Latham & Watkins
Latham & Watkins LLP, founded 1934 in Los Angeles by Dana Latham and Paul Watkins, is a global law firm with 31 offices in 14 countries, $8.3 billion 2025 revenue, and #2 rank in the 2026 Am Law 100.
Law of agency
Law of agency: common law doctrine of principal-agent relationships, covering actual, apparent, and inherent authority, ratification, fiduciary duties, and civil law comparison.
Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump
A 2026 United States Supreme Court decision holding that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act does not authorize presidential tariffs, striking down tariffs imposed by executive order in 2025.
Leave of absence
Leave of absence: extended time away from work. In the US, governed by the FMLA (12 weeks unpaid job-protected leave), ADA accommodation leave, state workers' compensation, and state paid leave programs.
Legal disputes over the Harry Potter series
Legal disputes over the Harry Potter series center on Warner Bros. and J.K. Rowling v. RDR Books (2008), which blocked the print Harry Potter Lexicon as infringement, rejecting fair use, and later AI-memorization controversies.
Legal person
Legal person: any human or non-human entity, such as a corporation, treated as a person able to sue, own property, and contract. Rooted in Roman universitas and medieval persona ficta, affirmed in Salomon v Salomon.
Lemon law
Lemon laws are U.S. state statutes requiring manufacturers to repurchase or replace vehicles with unrepairable substantial defects. Built on the 1975 Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act, all 50 states have them, with varying repair-attempt thresholds, windows, and arbitration rules.
Limited liability
Limited liability is a business law concept protecting shareholders from a company's debts up to the amount they invested, contrasting with the unlimited liability of sole traders.
Limited liability company
Limited liability company (LLC): a U.S. state-law business entity giving members limited liability with partnership-style pass-through taxation, first created by Wyoming's 1977 statute; FinCEN BOI reporting for domestic LLCs was permanently removed in 2026.
Limited liability partnership
A limited liability partnership (LLP) is a hybrid business form giving partners a liability shield with partnership taxation; used by law, accounting, and medical firms; governed by acts such as the UK LLP Act 2000 and India's LLP Act 2008, with full-shield and partial-shield state variants in the US.
Limited partnership
Limited partnership (LP, société en commandite): a partnership with general partners who manage and bear unlimited liability and limited partners liable only up to their capital contribution; standard vehicle for private equity and venture funds, governed in the UK by the 1907 Act.
Lina Khan
Lina Khan, American antitrust scholar and FTC Chair June 2021 to January 2025; author of the 2017 Yale Law Journal article "Amazon's Antitrust Paradox"; youngest-ever FTC chair at 32.
Liquidated damages
Liquidated damages (agreed damages, stipulated sums) are contract clauses fixing in advance the money payable for breach. Enforceable at common law only as genuine pre-estimates of loss, not penalties; civil law systems instead moderate excessive sums.
Liquidation
Liquidation (winding up) is the terminal corporate insolvency procedure: assets are sold, proceeds distributed to creditors by statutory priority, and the company dissolved. Distinguished from administration, which attempts rescue; forms include CVL, compulsory, and members' voluntary liquidation.
List of copyright duration by country
Copyright duration by country: Berne Convention sets a life-plus-50-year minimum; many states use 50 years pma (China, Japan, Korea) and others 70 (EU, US, Australia), with rule of the shorter term and special terms for anonymous, film, and corporate works.
List of generic and genericized trademarks
Genericized trademarks: brand names like aspirin, escalator, thermos, yo-yo, cellophane, and trampoline that became generic product names and lost US trademark protection through genericide, with case citations.
List of legal entity types by country
The list of legal entity types by country, also known as a list of company types, catalogs business forms like corporations, partnerships, and LLCs across jurisdictions.
List of minimum annual leave by country
Statutory minimum paid annual leave by country: ILO Convention No. 132 floor of three working weeks, EU minimum of four weeks, and national minimums ranging from 7 to 30 days; the United States has no federal mandate.
List of prolific inventors
List of prolific inventors: inventors named on unusually many granted patents. Shunpei Yamazaki leads USPTO counts (6,739; Guinness 11,353), ahead of Tao Luo and Kia Silverbrook; counts depend on name disambiguation.
MACRS
MACRS (Modified Accelerated Cost Recovery System) is the U.S. federal tax depreciation system under IRC section 168, replacing ACRS for property placed in service after 1986, with GDS and ADS recovery periods of 3 to 39 years.
Magic Circle (law firms)
The Magic Circle is an informal label, coined by the legal press in the 1990s, for five leading London-based commercial law firms: A&O Shearman, Clifford Chance, Freshfields, Linklaters, and Slaughter and May.
Magnuson–Moss Warranty Act
The Magnuson–Moss Warranty Act (15 U.S.C. §§2301-2312) is the 1975 U.S. federal law governing written warranties on consumer products, requiring full/limited titling and disclosure, restricting implied-warranty disclaimers and tie-in sales, and giving consumers fee-shifting remedies.
Market manipulation
Market manipulation: deliberate trading or disclosure conduct creating false appearances of activity or price in financial markets. Includes wash trading, spoofing, pump-and-dump; prohibited under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, UK MAR, and similar laws.
Maternity Benefit (Amendment) Act, 2017
A 2017 Act of the Indian Parliament amending the Maternity Benefit Act, 1961, extending paid maternity leave to 26 weeks for the first two children.