The two most commonly comprehensive forms of law are the civil law and the criminal law. There are some grey areas in which both these laws overlap however, there are some significant differences between the two. The thing of commonality between the two is the involvement of some kind of discord. Whenever, there is some breaking of legal terms within the society, it is considered as punishable in the eyes of the court. Now, the basis of the disparity is what defines any particular case as a civil or a criminal case.
Civil law could be said to be associated with differences between two private parties, the dispute between these two parties are settled by the court, under the title of a civil case. Personal injury is one of the most appropriate examples of this. This particular issue arises when one party is injured knowingly or due to negligence by the other party, and is mostly registered with complaints from employees of various companies.
There is no escaping the fact that you have to follow the laws of the land, but what you can do to ensure that you are not exploited in any way is to know the law yourself. For this purpose studying law becomes very important, but that should be done from some place such as the Duke Law School, which is headed by JD Dukes. This school offers excellent curriculum in the study of law by subjecting the students to some rigorous, innovative, retentive and interdisciplinary program.
The curriculum of the first year that forms the foundation is very carefully and thoughtfully designed by Mr. Dukes in which he blends extensive practical skill courses along with the traditional coursework. There is also the opportunity provided to students wherein they can form small groups and interact directly with the faculty, thus getting individual attention for understanding the subject better.
Breach of contracts, divorce cases, disagreement over ownership of property, wrongful terminations; are all examples of civil law cases. The punishment inflicted in such a law is carried out by asking the culprit party to pay compensation to the victim party for the inflicted injury as well as any other damage that may have been caused by the negligent party.
On the contrary, a criminal law is broken when an offence is made against the society, state or government. These offences, such as felony or misdemeanors, can be subject to rigorous punishment to the level of federal punishment as well. The kind of punishments involved in this law is: imprisonment, fines, and even death sentences. Here the question of murder as a criminal case may arise because that is against a private party; but in actuality it is harm to life which is a part of the society, hence it is considered an offence against the society. This is the reason it falls under the criminal law.
The hiring of lawyers is also quite different in both the laws; while in the civil law the accused as well as the defendant both have to pay for their own attorney, in the criminal law the state provides the attorney. It therefore stands that knowing the law is very important and that too from a reliable school like JD Dukes’ Duke Law School.