50 free Law trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
47 free law trivia questions with answers. You do not need a law degree for these law trivia questions, just a good memory for the cases and codes that everyone half-remembers. The 50 questions run from the Code of Hammurabi and the Twelve Tables to Magna Carta, the Napoleonic Code and the US Constitution, and through the landmark Supreme Court cases: Marbury, Brown, Gideon, Miranda, Roe and Dobbs. There is also plenty of courtroom colour: the trial of Socrates, the Salem hangings, the Scopes Monkey Trial, Nuremberg, O. J. Simpson's glove, why Lady Justice at the Old Bailey has no blindfold, where 'the bar' gets its name, and the year England finally abolished trial by combat. It works as a legal round for a pub quiz, a law-school icebreaker or a civics class. Every answer has been checked against a documented source and each question shows its citation and a short explanation after you answer.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01How many justices sit on the Supreme Court of the United States?
Nine
The number has been fixed by statute since 1869; the Court receives about 7,000 petitions a year and hears around 80.
Q 02Which 1803 case established the US Supreme Court's power of judicial review?
Marbury v. Madison
Chief Justice John Marshall used a dispute over an undelivered commission to claim the most important power the Court has.
Q 03Who was the first Chief Justice of the United States, nominated by George Washington in 1789?
John Jay
The Senate confirmed him on 26 September 1789, two days after the Judiciary Act created the Court.
Q 04Who became the first woman to serve on the US Supreme Court in 1981?
Sandra Day O'Connor
Reagan had promised during his campaign to appoint a woman, and the Senate confirmed her 99 to 0.
Q 05How many of his 32 Supreme Court civil rights cases did NAACP lawyer Thurgood Marshall win?
29
The biggest was Brown v. Board of Education; he was the Court's first African American justice and served until 1991.
Q 06In which year was Brown v. Board of Education decided?
1954
The vote was 9-0 and Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote it; the case began when Oliver Brown's daughter was turned away from her neighbourhood school in Topeka.
Q 07Brown v. Board of Education partially overruled which 1896 'separate but equal' decision?
Plessy v. Ferguson
Homer Plessy had been arrested for sitting in a whites-only railway car in Louisiana.
Q 08What was the vote in the 1966 Supreme Court ruling requiring police to tell suspects of their right to silence?
5-4
Ernesto Miranda was retried without his confession, convicted anyway, and was stabbed to death in a bar fight in 1976.
Q 09How did Clarence Earl Gideon write the Supreme Court petition that won poor defendants a free lawyer?
In pencil on jail stationery
The 1963 ruling was 9-0; at his retrial with a proper lawyer the jury acquitted him in an hour.
Q 10Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973 by what margin?
7-2
Justice Harry Blackmun wrote the opinion; 'Jane Roe' was Norma McCorvey; the ruling was overturned by Dobbs in 2022.
Q 11Which 2022 case overruled Roe v. Wade?
Dobbs v. Jackson
The decision returned abortion regulation to the states after 49 years.
Q 12The Fifth Amendment bars trying anyone twice for the same offence. What is that protection called?
Double jeopardy
England and Wales loosened their version in 2003, allowing retrial of serious offences when new and compelling evidence turns up.
Q 13The Latin phrase habeas corpus, the name of the writ against unlawful imprisonment, literally means what?
You shall have the body
The English Habeas Corpus Act of 1679 codified it, and Lincoln famously suspended it during the Civil War.
Q 21How many original 1215 copies of Magna Carta survive?
Four
Two are in the British Library, one at Lincoln Castle and one at Salisbury Cathedral.
Q 22The Code of Hammurabi, the best-preserved law code of the ancient Near East, is inscribed on a stele of what stone, more than two metres tall?
Basalt
It was dug up at Susa in 1901 and now stands in the Louvre; it is the source of the 'eye for an eye' principle.
Q 23The 'eye for an eye' principle found in the Code of Hammurabi is known by what Latin name?
Lex talionis
Penalties in the Code varied by social class: the same injury cost more if the victim was a free man.
Q 14How many times has the US Constitution been amended since it took effect in 1789?
27
The first ten came together as the Bill of Rights in 1791; the 27th, on congressional pay, was ratified in 1992 after 202 years.
Q 15Which Founding Father is popularly called the 'Father of the Constitution'?
James Madison
He also led the push for the first ten amendments in the First Congress, and later served as fourth president.
Q 16The Twenty-first Amendment of 1933 is unique in US history for what reason?
It repealed an earlier one
It ended Prohibition by undoing the Eighteenth Amendment on 5 December 1933; the Volstead Act had done the enforcing.
Q 17Which is the only US state whose private law is based on civil law rather than English common law?
Louisiana
Its code descends from French and Spanish law rooted in Rome; judges follow jurisprudence constante rather than binding precedent, and its counties are called parishes.
Q 18Roughly what fraction of the world's population lives under common law or mixed common-law systems?
About one-third
Common law grew from the travelling judges Henry II sent around England in the 12th century, and spread with the British Empire.
Q 19Which 12th-century English king set up travelling judges, laying the foundation of the common law?
Henry II
They applied a set of laws 'common to all England' rather than local custom, which is where the name comes from.
Q 20Magna Carta was sealed by King John at Runnymede on 15 June of which year?
1215
Pope Innocent III annulled it within weeks, which set off the First Barons' War; four copies of the 1215 text survive.
Q 24Roman law's foundational tablets were drawn up around 450 BC by the decemviri, a board of how many men?
Ten
The decemviri wrote them down after plebeian agitation, and the tables were posted publicly so every Roman could read them.
Q 25The Napoleonic Code, still the basis of French civil law, came into force in which year?
1804
It swept away the patchwork of feudal laws and forbade judges from issuing general rulings of a legislative kind.
Q 26Socrates was tried in Athens in 399 BC on charges of impiety and what else?
Corrupting the youth
On a jury of about 501, the vote was 280 to 221; he drank the hemlock himself at the age of 70.
Q 27How many people were executed by hanging in the Salem witch trials of 1692-93?
Nineteen
Fourteen women and five men; Giles Corey was separately pressed to death with stones for refusing to enter a plea.
Q 28The 1925 Scopes 'Monkey Trial' pitted Clarence Darrow for the defence against which famous prosecutor?
William Jennings Bryan
Scopes was fined $100 for teaching evolution; it was the first American trial broadcast nationally on radio.
Q 29Which lawyer told the O. J. Simpson jury 'If it doesn't fit, you must acquit'?
Johnnie Cochran
Simpson was acquitted on 3 October 1995; a civil jury found him responsible for the deaths in 1997.
Q 30The main Nuremberg trial of Nazi leaders was held from November 1945 to October 1946 in which building?
The Palace of Justice
Twelve defendants were sentenced to death; the tribunal is regarded as the true beginning of international criminal law.