Law Trivia
0Loading crowd target
0Loading crowd target
7correct to beat the crowd
99 free Law trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Oct 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 99 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 99 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01How many justices sit on the Supreme Court of the United States?
Nine
Nine justices have sat on the Supreme Court since the Judiciary Act of 1869 fixed the number by statute.
Q 02Which 1803 case established the US Supreme Court's power of judicial review?
Marbury v. Madison
Marbury v. Madison (1803): Chief Justice John Marshall used William Marbury's undelivered commission to establish the Court's power of judicial review.
Q 03Who was the first Chief Justice of the United States, nominated by George Washington in 1789?
John Jay
John Jay was confirmed on 26 September 1789, two days after the Judiciary Act created the Court, and served as Chief Justice until 1795.
Q 04Who became the first woman to serve on the US Supreme Court in 1981?
Sandra Day O'Connor
Sandra Day O'Connor, an Arizona appeals judge nominated by Reagan, was confirmed 99-0 in September 1981 as the first woman on the Court.
Q 05How many of his 32 Supreme Court civil rights cases did NAACP lawyer Thurgood Marshall win?
29
Thurgood Marshall won 29 of the 32 cases he argued before the Supreme Court for the NAACP, the biggest being Brown v. Board of Education.
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
Miranda v. Arizona was decided 5-4 in 1966, with Chief Justice Earl Warren writing the majority opinion requiring the warnings.
Q 09How did Clarence Earl Gideon write the Supreme Court petition that won poor defendants a free lawyer?
In pencil on jail stationery
In pencil on jail stationery, Clarence Earl Gideon petitioned the Supreme Court; Gideon v. Wainwright (1963) was unanimous, and a jury acquitted him at his retrial.
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 12What is the Fifth Amendment protection against being tried twice for the same offence called?
Double jeopardy
Double jeopardy is the Fifth Amendment bar on a second trial for the same offence; England and Wales relaxed their rule in the Criminal Justice Act 2003.
Q 13The Latin phrase habeas corpus, the name of the writ against unlawful imprisonment, literally means what?
You shall have the body
'You shall have the body' is the literal sense of habeas corpus; the Habeas Corpus Act 1679 codified the writ, and Lincoln suspended it in 1861.
Q 21How many original exemplars of King John's Magna Carta survive?
Four
Four original exemplars of King John's Magna Carta survive: two in the British Library, one at Lincoln Castle and one at Salisbury Cathedral.
Q 22The Code of Hammurabi is inscribed on a stele of which stone?
Basalt
Basalt is the stone of the Hammurabi stele, found at Susa by Jacques de Morgan's French expedition in 1901-02 and now in the Louvre.
Q 23The 'eye for an eye' principle found in the Code of Hammurabi is known by what Latin name?
Lex talionis
Lex talionis, the law of retaliation, is the 'eye for an eye' principle; Hammurabi's penalties also varied with the victim's social class.
Q 14How many times has the US Constitution been amended since it took effect in 1789?
27
The Constitution has 27 amendments; the Bill of Rights came in 1791, and the 27th, on congressional pay, was ratified in 1992 after a 202-year wait.
Q 15Which Founding Father is popularly called the 'Father of the Constitution'?
James Madison
James Madison drafted the Virginia Plan, kept the fullest notes of the 1787 Convention, and later served two terms as president from 1809.
Q 16The Twenty-first Amendment of 1933 is unique in US history for what reason?
It repealed an earlier one
It repealed an earlier one: the Twenty-first Amendment undid the Eighteenth on 5 December 1933, ending Prohibition, which the Volstead Act had enforced.
Q 17Which is the only US state whose private law is based on civil law rather than English common law?
Louisiana
Louisiana's civil code descends from French and Spanish law; its 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
About one-third of the world's people live under common law or mixed common-law systems, a legacy of the British Empire carrying English law abroad; India alone supplies much of that share.
Q 19Which English king set up travelling royal judges, laying the foundation of the common law?
Henry II
Henry II sent itinerant royal justices on circuit from the 1160s, applying law 'common to all England' in place of local custom.
Q 20Magna Carta was sealed by King John at Runnymede on 15 June of which year?
1215
1215: King John sealed Magna Carta at Runnymede on 15 June; Pope Innocent III annulled it within weeks, setting off the First Barons' War.
Q 24How many men formed the Roman commission that wrote its first law tables around 450 BC?
Ten
Ten men, the decemviri, wrote Rome's first law code around 450 BC after plebeian agitation; the tables were posted publicly in the Forum.
Q 25In which year did the Napoleonic Code come into force?
1804
The Napoleonic Code came into force on 21 March 1804, replacing the patchwork of feudal and regional laws across France.
Q 26Socrates was tried in Athens in 399 BC on charges of impiety and what else?
Corrupting the youth
Corrupting the youth and impiety were the charges; a jury of about 501 Athenians convicted Socrates, who drank the hemlock at about 70.
Q 27How many people were executed by hanging in the Salem witch trials of 1692-93?
Nineteen
Nineteen people, 14 women and 5 men, were hanged; Giles Corey was separately pressed to death with stones for refusing to plead.
Q 28The 1925 Scopes 'Monkey Trial' pitted Clarence Darrow for the defence against which famous prosecutor?
William Jennings Bryan
William Jennings Bryan, three-time presidential candidate, led the prosecution; Scopes was fined $100, and WGN made it the first US trial broadcast on radio.
Q 29Which lawyer told the O. J. Simpson jury 'If it doesn't fit, you must acquit'?
Johnnie Cochran
Johnnie Cochran delivered the line in closing; Simpson was acquitted on 3 October 1995, and a civil jury found him liable in February 1997.
Q 30The main Nuremberg trial of Nazi leaders was held from November 1945 to October 1946 in which building?
The Palace of Justice
The Palace of Justice was chosen because it was largely undamaged and had a prison attached; the tribunal sat in its courtroom 600 from 20 November 1945.