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Law, Plainly
One legal idea, explained in plain English, every other Sunday. Short enough to read with your coffee. Clear enough to forward to a client, a board member, or your family.
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What’s in each issue
The explainer
One question people actually ask about the law, answered plainly. Recent topics: who decides your electric bill, the 2026 estate tax, and when a president can go to war without Congress.
The term
One piece of legal jargon, translated into a sentence you could say out loud.
From practice
Now and then, a short Q&A with a working lawyer about how their corner of the law actually works.
Your question
Reply with the legal question people keep asking you, or ask it here. The best ones become future issues.
Recent explainers
Anti-commandeering
The rule that Congress cannot order a state legislature to pass a law or conscript state officers to run a federal program. It can regulate people directly or offer states money with conditions instead.
Read the explainerHealth LawFERPA
The federal law that protects student education records at schools that receive U.S. Department of Education funds, and the reason most school health records fall outside HIPAA.
Read the explainerConstitutional LawZone of twilight
Justice Jackson's label for cases where Congress has neither authorized nor forbidden what a president does, so the president must rely on his own independent authority.
Read the explainerWho writes it
I’m Irving Steel, a second-year student at Roger Williams University School of Law. In summer 2026 I was a legal intern at the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office. Before law school I founded an environmental nonprofit, co-founded a media company, and spent about six years in China.
I write Law, Plainly to practice the skill I care about most as a future lawyer: explaining the law clearly to the people it affects.
One legal idea. Every other Sunday. Plainly.
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