Hard Cases

Hard cases make a good game.

Every day, one real case drawn from the law's long history. You read the facts, give your verdict, and discover what the court actually decided — then how the rest of the world ruled, and the principle that made it land where it did.

Lawyers warn that hard cases make bad law — that sympathetic facts tempt judges into bending doctrine. Here the opposite holds. The hardest cases, the ones where reasonable people genuinely divide, make the best game.

Most cases put you on the bench — a snap judgment, a sentence, a question of damages. Every seventh, you step out of the courtroom: as a lawmaker, deciding what the law should be, or a philosopher, asking what justice requires. Those have no court stamp — only what real polities chose, or what thinkers concluded.

Play each day, decide your cases, and rise through the ranks of the bench. Every case is real and decided; the names are held back until the reveal. Cases are drawn eclectically from across the United Kingdom, United States, Australia, Europe and beyond.

Whether you are a law student or a member of the public, Hard Cases lets you experience the life of the law — and helps gather a unique database of the public's views on law and justice.