}}This chapter looks at the three key components of In its broadest sense, ''the traditional legal system: the law'' refers to how laws and policies are made, how we decide which problems are legal problems, all of the courtsways that legal problems are addressed, and all of the people involved in resolving legal problems — including politicians, government staff, judges, prosecutors, lawyers, court administrators, mediators, arbitrators, and mental health professionals — and all of the court processpeople experiencing legal problems. In This chapter takes a narrow view of the legal disputesystem, but it's the parties present their competing claims to the view that we see in movies and on television, where all legal problems are resolved by in court, and the by a judge who hears the case applies listens to lawyers arguing about the law to the facts and makes a decision that resolves the dispute.

The chapter begins with a <span class="noglossary">brief</span> overview of the basic elements of our legal system and how they work together. The following sections that follow discuss the legal system in more detail, covering [[The Court System for Family Matters|the court system]], [[The Law for Family Matters|the law]], and [[You & Your Lawyer|the lawyer-client relationship]], in the context of family law disputes. It finishes with a discussion about the barriers and obstacles many people experience in resolving their legal problems, in the [[Access to Family Justice|Access to Justice]] section.