As the photo implies, substantive law is the type of law we see enforced on the streets…often by police. If someone robs a bank, a substantive law has been broken. If your neighbor hires an undocumented person who is not legal to work in the United States, a substantive law has been broken. If a corporation hides important financial information from its shareholder, well there goes another substantive law broken.
Most people don’t even know there is any other type of law other than substantive law. That’s because the other types of law, called procedural law, deal with the legal system on a higher, administrative level. For example, the steps that must be followed in a trial case are dictated by procedural law. What laws do member of the US Supreme Court follow in their daily operations? Procedural law.
Now, there are other types of law that fall into a sub category under substantive law…private law and public law. Then those types can also be divided. Private law covers transactions between private parties…real estate transactions, business transactions…both are types of private law. For public law, we have mainly what you see on Law & Order: murder, burglary, assault, etc.