A lot of people are having a whole lot of legal lingo thrown at them as all of the lawsuits against the Trump administration and their actions (65 as of the posting of this article on 2/13/25, and counting) are in the news every day. Terms like “standing”, “ultra vires”, “TRO”, and others regularly pepper our daily news cycle. Here are some of the legal terms which you may run across, and what they mean in plain English. If you have run across a term in the media or elsewhere that isn’t listed here, and you want to know what it means, in plain English, drop a comment and let me know and I’ll try to accommodate!
What Ultra Vires Means in Plain English
A whole lot of the lawsuits against the Trump administration and against President Trump himself include the term “ultra vires”. You’d be excused for not having heard this term before, even if you work in a legal field, because it ordinarily doesn’t come up a whole lot. It means acting outside the scope of one’s legal authority. In other words, the argument goes, President Trump has been acting outside the parameters of the legal authority of the office of the president.
What TRO Means in Plain English
TRO is shorthand for Temporary Restraining Order. It is a mechanism to have the court stop a perceived harm for a very short period of time until the parties can actually get into court. The reason it’s temporary, and for a very short time at that, is because TROs are most often issued when one party (usually the plaintiff) begs the court to issue the TRO before the court even hears the issue. This means that the defendant hasn’t even had a chance to respond to the allegations (in fact TROs are often served on the defendant along with the complaint that starts the lawsuit, so it’s the first that they have even heard of the lawsuit; this is very common in, for example, divorce cases).
What Injunction and Enjoin Mean in Plain English
An injunction is an order of the court that either prohibits (“enjoins” is essentially just fancy legal terminology for ‘prohibits’) the enjoined party from doing something, or that requires them to do something specific. Injunctions can be either temporary or permanent. A temporary injunction may either be for a short period of time (somewhat longer than a temporary restraining order) or kept in place until something specific happens. A permanent injunction is, well, permanent.
What Standing Means in Plain English
Standing is a fairly complex legal requirement to get a case into court at all, but basically in order to be a plaintiff in a lawsuit, so that the lawsuit can proceed and the legal arguments can be presented, you first have to “show the court where it hurts you”. If you can’t show the court that you, the plaintiff, personally are hurt by the defendant’s actions, then you don’t have standing.
What Declaratory Relief Means in Plain English
Declaratory relief is basically when the court clarifies (declares) the law, and lays out what are the duties and rights under that law, and how the parties are obligated to act under the law.
Want to Test Your New Knowledge?
If you want to take your new knowledge out for a spin, check out this nifty tracker of all of the lawsuits filed against the Trump administration.
