case file

All the correspondence regarding the case can also be filed directly in the case file, thus making it possible to have a complete history of the case at hand whenever the case is being looked up.

1896, New York. State School, Rome, Annual Report of the Board of Managers of the Rome State Custodial Asylum At Rome, N.Y., Issues 1-12, page 62:

he had gone into the case, seen the case file, and knew that the coroner and police investigations had identified the drowned child of so many years age as her son.

1957, Gwendoline Butler, Coffin on the Water, page 62:

A typical case file contains the following types of documents: agreement to arbitrate, correspondences regarding the selection of arbitrators, digest of case, transcript of proceedings of the arbitration board, exhibits, award, and related correspondence.

1974, Mary-Jane M. Dowd (editor and compiler), Preliminary Inventory of the Records of the National Mediation Board Record Group 13, page 33:

(law, medicine) A file detailing a legal or medical case.


hard cases make bad law

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-hard cases make bad law.wav

(law) An extreme case is a poor basis for a general law that would cover a wider range of less extreme cases.

(law) A general law is better drafted for the average circumstance.


make a case

en-verb

make a case (third-person singular simple present makes a case, present participle making a case, simple past and past participle made a case)

makes a case (present singular third-person)
making a case (participle present)
made a case (participle past)
made a case (past)

(law, idiomatic) To argue for a set of facts or arguments in support of one side in a legal case.


found-in

Twenty-five-year-old Garnet Plum was convicted of being a found-in in a common bawdyhouse.

1981 December 27, “Accused Of Becoming An Activist”, in Gay Community News, volume 9, number 23, page 2:

He was charged with being a "found-in, without lawful excuse" because of his presence at a party where the person giving the party was convicted of serving liquor to a person who was already intoxicated.

1999 10, David Vanek, Fulfilment: Memoirs of a Criminal Court Judge, Dundurn, →ISBN, page 260:

Arrested as found-ins and charged as “public vagabonds and Bawds” were his son Joseph, his daughter Mary, his son-in-law Anthony Billow (alias Beleau, Bellew, Bellow, Bellows, etc.), and Jane Graham, wife of Henry Garret, a black woman arrested several times as a prostitute.

2010, Frank Mackey, Done with Slavery: The Black Fact in Montreal, 1760-1840, page 243:

(law, historical) One who is known to have been present in a brothel or other illegal establishment, regardless of whether they were actively engaging in illegal activities.


vis compulsiva

(law) A force that is used to make a person carry out an action against their will.


in contempt

(law) The willful disobedience to or open disrespect of a court, judge, or legislative body.


private attorney general

en-noun

private attorney general (plural private attorney generals)

(law) An attorney who brings a lawsuit advocating it to be in the public interest on behalf of a citizen or group of citizens.


general counsel

general counsel (plural general counsels)

(law) The chief in-house lawyer for a company or a governmental department.


process of green wax

(law, historical, obsolete) The act or issue of a server of green wax.