Sword of Fire by Katherine Kerr (the Deverry series in general, but that one in particular).
Swordspoint by Ellen Kushner
And possibly (bit hazy on the details), The Warrior's Bond by Juliet E McKenna.
In my Star Trek: TNG novel COLLATERAL DAMAGE, Captain Picard faces an Article 32 hearing (an inquest used to determine if evidence warrants a general court-martial). I based the protocols and verbiage of the court scenes on real Article 32 transcripts. davidmack.pro/writing/collateral-damage/
Others have mentioned it already, but Max Gladstone's Craft Sequence. This section of his website pitches it better than I ever could:
“The Craft Sequence books are set in a postindustrial fantasyland: gods with shareholders’ committees, necromancers in pinstriped suits, and soulstuff as currency.”
Technically, and I mean very technically, Space Opera by @catvalente.bsky.social features a legal matter as the main conflict in the book. It's just that the legal matter is resolved as Space Eurovision.
Jennifer Jeanne McArdle’s ‘Dream Logs After One End of the World’ – ‘art, nostalgia, algorithms, with a woman on trial for writing a blog post about her dream’ – maybe?
Year Zero by Robert Reid is sci-fi novel dealing with aliens trying to deal with the legal implications of accidentally pirating human music for decades.
Elizabeth Bonesteel's Central Corps series has several legal plot points, including a murder charge that must be defended in the first book (The Cold Between)
Melissa Scott's "Roads of Heaven" trilogy opens with an extremely sexist probate hearing for an estate that sets up everything, and more sexist law events get kind of sprinkled throughout the books. First volume is "Five Twelfths of Heaven."
Frank Herbert's Whipping Star & Dosadi Experiment.
Same universe/characters.
Gets very heavy into what would be called Xeno Legal Systems.
Eg: part of a Gowachin trial is molting your skin.
Whipping Star is a Novella. Dosadi full book.
Eando Binder's story "I, Robot" and it's follow-ups - not to be confused with Asimov's later book - features a robot put on trial for murder. It was loosely adapted for both the 60s and 90s series of The Outer Limits, featuring Leonard Nimoy both times
John Varley's "Golden Globe" ends with the trial of the protagonist for the murder or his father.
H. Beam Piper's "Lone Star Planet" also ends with a trial.
Two Star Trek (TOS) episodes featured court martials. The two-parter "The Menagerie" centered on the court martial of Mr. Spock for kidnapping Captain Pike and going to the forbidden planet Talos IV. "Court Martial" centered on a court martial of Captain Kirk for the death of a crewman.
Glen Cook's Garrett, P.I. books are set in a fantasy world. There are some laws, although they're a bit arbitrary and mostly about property and inheritance for the rich. The main character is an investigator who is just trying to thread his way through it all, and not get killed by, say, unicorns.
THIS: "A Civil Campaign" by Lois McMaster Bujold
Thing is...it's, like, book eight or nine or twelve in the series, so it might not make a lot of sense. But the whole thing revolves around a succession among the lords of this disproportionately-significant-for-its-size space empire.
The Last Binding series by Freya Marske (2024 Hugo nom for best series) involves contracts between magicians and the land, though disputes aren't resolved in courtrooms and inheritance happens directly.
Cannot recommend the Miles Vorkosigan books enough. Several of the books have legal and political investigations come up & they’re just generally awesome novels. The Mountains of Mourning is the one that specifically comes to mind but the series addresses things like that in several others as well.
Babylon 5, S1:E12 - Any Means Necessary.
Union busting via legislated illegal strikes in the aftermath of workplace accidents (in spaaaaace), culminating in a hellacious “read the fine print” moment for the episode’s antagonist
@tkingfisher.bsky.social's White Rat books are named after a whole church of lawyers, with a couple books actually featuring court cases: Swordheart is about a woman trying to get her inheritance back from inlaws, and Paladin's Grace has an attempted murder trial
Katharine Kerr's fantasy novel Sword of Fire specifically hinges on a search for a law book to deal with a legal matter. Part of the Deverry sequence but stands alone as both entry (no need to read previous books) and with narrative closure
I’m currently reading A Long Trip to a Small Angry Planet. It’s more episodic so hard to say what is major but two main characters become entangled in a legal situation that gets into one jurisdiction respecting the laws of another (more going on but don’t want to spoil).
The Witness for the Dead by Katherine Addison is the first in a trilogy set in a “fantasy with light steam punk touches” world. The series follows a character who witnesses for the dead to achieve some measure of justice within the legal system.
T Kingfisher has a whole Order of the White Rat which has Adjudicators Sacrosanct who help folks who can't afford lawyers with legal matters. SWORDHEART is about a woman who inherits a magical sword with a human soul inside, and she turns to the Order to help with a legal issue.
The novel Monument by Lloyd Biggle Jr turns on legal issues. A crash landed prospector realizes that the paradise world's natives would be destroyed once it was discovered, so he creates a plan to thwart the invasion. Lots of dirty tricks.
The third book of the Star Wars (Legends) X-Wing series features a murder trial for events in the second book. The suspect in question is suspected of being a double-agent and selling his teammate out to the Empire. (Trying to be vague to avoid spoilers)
frank herbert wrote sf books with a space lawyer protag: whipping star (1970), the dosadi experiment (1977)
i seem to remember some essentially legal confrontations in these books
A.Y. Chao's Shanghai Immortal and Em X. Liu's If Found, Return to Hell are of the "dealing with hell is basically contract law" fantasy variety. On the SF side, lots of dystopian fiction hinges on struggles with bad law. Marisa Crane's I Keep My Exoskeletons to Myself comes to mind.
In Max Gladstone’s Craft Sequence, contract law is magically binding and “lawyer” and “necromancer” are pretty much the same job. The first book, THREE PARTS DEAD, involves dealing with the contractual obligations of a dead god...
H. Beam Piper's LITTLE FUZZY ends in a court case trying to determine whether the titular fuzzies are sapient. John Scalzi's rewrite FUZZY NATION does likewise.
I don't know if C.S. Friedman's "In Conquest Born" would count, but I'd suggest it none the less. It's heavily political and has a good bit of legal in it?
Two groups vying for control of territory via proxy war, super interesting stuff!
I don’t remember if THE CITY WE BECAME by N. K. Jemisin also has the legal issue, but the second book, THE WORLD WE MAKE, has Brooklyn (both the character and the borough) dealing with a company trying to take her father’s brownstone by sketchy legal means, which is rooted in real-world fact.
People have mentioned the TNG Measure of A Man episode.
Melinda Snodgrass, one of the writers of that episode, also wrote a trilogy of books about the role of a new circuit court in trying to establish law in turning-independent spacers/colonies.
I remember it being really interesting.
I'm enjoying John Scalzi's Lock-In series now as a collection of sci-fi procedurals based in novel legal interpretations.
Ann Leckie's Ancillary Justice trilogy (spoiler alert) brilliantly turns on a big treaty interpretation issue.
If you want to go very old school, I recommend Njal's Saga (presented as history, but has many fantasy elements), which has a *gripping* courtroom drama as an important part of the story.
Flex by Ferret Steinmetz (and it's sequels, Flux and Fix) are about a man whose obsession with bureaucracy becomes a magical superpower of being *really good at paperwork*
I just remembered: FREDDY AND THE BEAN HOME NEWS (1943), kids book about a talking pig, featuring a jury trial AND discussions about the intersection of the media and politics.
(The author was not fond of U.S. politicians.)
