Hello, I’m Zhan Qingyun.

At the outset of this program, we wanted to correct an impression created by legal dramas: that a lawyer’s work centers on trial and consists of three stages—preparing for court, appearing in court, and celebrating afterward.

In reality, more than ninety percent of cases never reach trial.

Where do they end, and what stops them? At the preliminary legal questions we began introducing in the program’s first part—the many dimensions counsel must consider in handling a case.

The first is jurisdiction, to which we devoted considerable time.

Before counsel can test and argue facts at trial, they must win the right to place the case before that court. Defense counsel tries to deny that right, because no court can hear everything. Jurisdiction is only one aspect of this threshold stage.

A court may possess authority over both the defendant and subject matter, yet a particular plaintiff may still lack standing to sue.

The court may properly address the problem, but you may not be the proper plaintiff. Not everyone may sue over everything.

Like jurisdiction, standing is a gateway. Before a court seriously considers the claim, each threshold must be crossed.

Early in the program, while discussing punishment, we introduced the 1973 case Linda R. S. v. Richard D. A mother had a child with her boyfriend, to whom she was not married, and he refused child support.

A local prosecutor declined to bring charges because the child was born outside marriage, so the mother sued the prosecutor.

The Supreme Court never reached whether the boyfriend should pay support. It stopped earlier, holding that the mother lacked standing.

The mother could not demand criminal prosecution of another person. The satisfaction of seeing someone disliked imprisoned was no longer considered a legitimate aim of punishment, so she lacked the necessary personal legal interest.

The case illustrates a common-sense principle: not everyone may intervene in everything.

A plaintiff may sue because they have a personal stake. A bystander cannot see someone assaulted, become angry at the victim’s silence, and sue the attacker in the victim’s place. Courts face a practical constraint repeatedly stated in Supreme Court cases: judicial time is finite, and an effective system cannot let unrelated third parties litigate any matter they choose.

How close the connection must be is often disputed.