Page "Chinese law" Paragraph 17

The Han dynasty formally recognized four sources of law: lü ( 律: " codified laws "), ling ( 令: " the emperor's order "), ke ( 科: " statutes inherited from previous dynasties ") and bi ( 比: " precedents "), among which ling has the highest binding power over the other three.

Most legal professionals were not lawyers but generalists trained in philosophy and literature.

The local, classically trained, Confucian gentry played a crucial role as arbiters and handled all but the most serious local disputes.