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Abatement: a diminishment, a reduction
- Abrogate: to cancel, destroy, revoke or void
- Abscond: to vanish, to travel covertly out of the court's jurisdiction
- Abstention: a legal policy whereby one court declines to exercise its jurisdiction and defer to a different court
- Abuse of Discretion: a standard applied by appellate courts in reviewing the exercise of discretion by trial courts, administrative agencies and other entities
- Abuse of Process: the improper use of the legal process
- Acceleration: to speed up, to hasten
- Accord: agreement
- Accrue: to accumulate, to collect, to come into existence, as to a right or cause of action, to come into existence as an enforceable legal claim
- Action (At Law): a legal right whereby one party prosecutes another for a wrong
- Actionable: giving rise to a cause of action
- Actionable Tort: the failure to perform a legal duty created by statute or common law owed by one party to another which such failure results in injury
- Act of God: forces of nature which are impossible to predict
- Actual Damages: losses which are proven to have incurred as a result of the wrongful act of another
- Ad Damnum: (lat.) the amount of damages demanded normally in the context of a lawsuit
- Additur: an increase by the court in the amount of damages awarded by the jury
- Adjourn: to suspend; to delay a court proceeding through recess
- Adjudication: a determination of the controversy and a pronouncement of a judgment based on evidence presented
- Ad Litem: (lat.) for the lawsuit
- Admiralty and Maritime Jurisdiction: jurisdiction over actions related to events occurring on navigable waters
- Admission: voluntary acknowledgment that certain facts do exist or are true
- Alienation of Affections: a tort based upon willful, malicious or intentional interference of a marriage relation by a third party
- Alter Ego: (lat.) the other self. Under this legal doctrine, the law will disregard the personal liability an individual has as a result of the existence a
corporate entity and will regard an act as the act of the individual rather than solely the act of the corporation
- American Bar Association (A.B.A.): a national organization of lawyers and law students
- Amicus Curiae: (lat.) a friend of the court
- Annotation: citing a particular case of statute
- Annuity: a contract that provides for the payment of a fixed sum usually over a period of time, and often utilized to fund a structured settlement
- Annul: to make void, to do away with
- Answer: the court papers filed on behalf of the defendant in response to plaintiff's complaint
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