The Magic of Law

Lawyers have often been compared to wizards. They both wear long robes, speak in Latin, and affect the material world around them. To the layperson, the verbosity of legalese can oft-times sound like hocus pocus, and they should be forgiven for thinking that there are no limits to a wizard’s or lawyer’s powers. In any event, let’s examine this metaphor a little closer. 

Take a simple spell, such as abracadabra. Its effect, depending on the magician, may be to make a card disappear from a deck or his assistant’s bloomers appear in his hands. Essentially, spellcraft, and likewise law, use language as a conduit for power to exert change in the material world. 

Just as language is an abstraction of reality, law and magic reify language back into reality. 

Notice that I said ‘conduit for power’ as opposed to ‘power’ itself. A judge ordering you to stay away from your ex has much more power than my mother ordering me to eat my green beans. 

This is not to say that ordinary people cannot command the force of law. On the contrary, just as regular people in fantasy can use simple charms, so too can they use the law. For example, it may be quite hard for an ordinary person to conjure a dragon, but they can quite easily conjure a company (a separate legal entity) by filling in a few forms on the CIPC website. 

The only real difference between the law and magic, is that law is bound by what is possible, whereas magic is not. There is no law or legal principle you can rely on to bring back your lost lover. When the facts are not in your favor, relying on cunning sophistry and raising vacuous legal arguments can only delay the inevitable for a short time. 

Law and magic are otherwise bound by the same restraints such as power, and formula. 

In regard to power, just as magicians rely on mana, legal processes rely on money. Even a layman conjuring a company has to pay dues to the CIPC before his spell is perfected. Sometimes, complex spells may even require a coven of witches, or a powerful warlock. Likewise, complex legal matters may even require an entire legal team, or a senior advocate. 

In regard to formula, a grimoire may prescribe that the cauldron be churned seven times clockwise. However, the law may stipulate that you attempt alternate dispute resolution before you sue someone. 

If, by now, you remain unconvinced of the Magic of the Law, then as a final example consider how the wizarding world was taken over by a certain he who must not be named, a powerful sorcerer competent in the dark arts. Similarly, when the Reichstag building caught fire in 1933, Adolf Hitler signed the Enabling Act into power, establishing himself as dictator of Germany and going on to seize half of Europe.