Legal instrument

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A somewhat fusty expression for a complicated grab-bag of similar things that one likes to refer to collectively in boilerplate; therefore one we should use more than we do, for all its fustiness. A “legal instrument” covers a contract, a negotiable instrument, a constitutive document, the rules of a club, organisation, society, exchange or clearing house, a regulation, a statute and — possibly — a written judgment that, through the doctrine of stare decisis, attains the status of the positive law of the land.

We like the expression “legal instrument”, therefore.