Definition
Instructions is a term with several distinct legal meanings depending on context. In each, the common thread is a directive issued by a superior or authorized party to guide the conduct of another.
1. Agency law. Directions given by a principal to an agent regarding the conduct of the agency. The agent is bound to follow these instructions, and failure to do so without justification — such as necessity — renders the agent liable for resulting consequences.
2. Litigation practice. Written summaries of the facts of a case prepared by a client and delivered to an attorney or counsel, used to guide the preparation of pleadings, examinations, and trial strategy. In historical English practice, these documents were the foundational briefing instruments passed between solicitors and barristers.
3. Jury instructions. Directions given by a judge to a jury explaining the applicable law, the elements of claims or offenses, the burden of proof, and the standards by which the jury must evaluate the evidence. Jury instructions are among the most consequential procedural tools in a trial, governing how a verdict may lawfully be reached.
4. Maritime law. Written or printed orders delivered by a convoy's commanding officer to the masters of ships under his charge, specifying signals, rendezvous points, and procedures to follow in case of separation. Ships sailing without valid instructions forfeited the protection and benefits of convoy.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): Plural of instruction; directions or orders telling someone how to do something or what to do.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Directions or orders given by authority; also, the act of instructing or teaching.
The common-language meaning broadly captures directions given to another. The legal usage is narrower and more formal in each of its contexts: it implies a structured relationship of authority (principal/agent, client/solicitor, judge/jury, commander/captain), defined legal consequences for non-compliance, and, in the jury and maritime contexts, specific procedural requirements governing form and delivery.
Recognized Forms
/SUBTYPES
JURY INSTRUCTIONS: The judge's legal directions to a jury. May include instructions on elements of the offense or claim, burden of proof, credibility of witnesses, and the legal standard for verdict. Erroneous jury instructions are a common ground for appeal.
SAILING INSTRUCTIONS (CONVOY INSTRUCTIONS): The maritime subtype. Historically essential to establish a vessel's entitlement to the legal protection of convoy under prize law and admiralty.
BRIEF/INSTRUCTIONS TO COUNSEL: The English common law practice form, in which a client's facts and objectives are set out in writing for the barrister retained to conduct a case. Distinct from the modern American sense of attorney briefing.
AGENCY INSTRUCTIONS: Directives from a principal controlling an agent's scope of authorized action. Their content defines the agent's authority and limits liability for the principal.
Why It Matters in Research
The term "instructions" in the Law Mind corpus will appear in radically different legal contexts depending on the source document's subject matter, and researchers must distinguish among them.
In older English common law materials, "instructions" most often refers to the practice document — the written brief delivered by solicitor to barrister. This usage is largely obsolete in American practice but appears in historical English procedural treatises and in Burrill's definition. Do not confuse this with modern attorney client communications.
In American appellate records and trial transcripts, "instructions" almost always means jury instructions. This is the dominant usage in American legal discourse from the late nineteenth century forward. Challenges to instructions are a primary vehicle for appellate review, and researchers examining error preservation, directed verdicts, and harmless error doctrine will encounter the term constantly. The encyclopedia entries on jury trial and closing arguments are the primary navigation points for this usage.
In agency and contract law sources, instructions define the scope of authorized conduct and are central to determining whether an agent acted within or outside authority. The distinction between instructions given and instructions followed — or departed from — frequently controls liability analysis.
In maritime prize law and admiralty sources, sailing instructions are a formal legal requirement with specific evidentiary weight. Their absence or inadequacy affects a vessel's legal status under convoy protection rules.
Jurisdictional and temporal drift: the English practice meaning (client-to-solicitor brief) is the oldest and most prominent in pre-twentieth-century English dictionaries. American sources from the same era increasingly use the term to mean jury charge or jury instructions. Researchers using both English and American historical sources in the same project must remain alert to this divergence.
Historical Dictionary Support
The four shelf sources collectively cover the term's primary senses without full agreement on which is central.
Bouvier's treats the agency sense as primary under "Common Law" and addresses the litigation-practice sense separately under "Practice," defining instructions as the client's statement of a cause of action delivered to an attorney. This bifurcation reflects the English solicitor/barrister system that Bouvier imported into his structure.
Rapalje & Lawrence offers the most economical synthesis: "Directions given by a principal to his agent; a client to his attorney; or a judge to the jury." This three-part formulation is useful precisely because it acknowledges all three relational contexts without privileging one. Rapalje & Lawrence also separately addresses sailing instructions in maritime law, noting that vessels without such instructions cannot claim convoy protection.
Burrill focuses exclusively on the practice document sense — written statements of facts given to counsel — and cites Chitty's General Practice for the detailed procedural framework. Burrill's definition is the narrowest of the shelf sources and most directly reflects the English barrister-brief tradition.
Black's Law Dictionary entry as excerpted in the source material is fragmentary, appearing to conflate text from a different entry (the passage describing "a system or body of usages" belongs to a definition of "institution" or a similar term, not instructions). Researchers should treat the Black's excerpt in this source batch as unreliable for instructions specifically.
All sources that address the agency sense agree on the core legal consequence: an agent who departs from instructions without justification bears liability for resulting harm.
Jurisdictional Note
In American federal practice, jury instructions are a formalized procedural stage with detailed rules governing submission, objection, and preservation of error. Many states have pattern jury instruction sets (standard form instructions approved for routine use) that differ in structure and content across jurisdictions. The English "instructions to counsel" usage does not appear as a formal legal category in American practice.