Also known as: in-force · operative · effective · in effect
Written by attorneys · grounded in primary & secondary sources — see below
An adjective describing a rule, agreement, or other legal instrument that is currently operative and binding.
Select any source to read its text and confirm it supports the definition.
Idris Ives, a managing partner at Integrity Partners, directed associates to adopt new intake checklists and conflict-screening software. The checklists and software became operative the following week, satisfying the requirement that the firm maintain measures giving reasonable assurance of conformity with professional conduct rules.
After her lease expired, Isabella Ingram remained in the apartment without paying rent or claiming ownership. The court treated her continued occupancy as an estate at sufferance because her original possessory interest had terminated and no superior title claim existed.
Ideal Solutions leased a warehouse to Interlink Communications while concealing a known structural defect in the loading dock. Liability remained in force until Interlink discovered the defect and had a reasonable opportunity to take precautions against it.
Isaac Irving signed a release allowing Inertia Dynamics to test a prototype drone on his property. When the company instead used the drone to photograph neighboring land, the consent was not operative for that different activity.
Iris Irons sued an out-of-state defendant for $90,000 in federal court under diversity jurisdiction. When a co-plaintiff joined with a related claim below the jurisdictional amount, the court exercised supplemental jurisdiction because complete diversity existed and the claims shared a common nucleus of operative fact.
Iain Irons and Idina Iverson signed a premarital agreement two weeks before their wedding. The agreement took effect on the date of the marriage ceremony and governed the division of their separate property from that point forward.
A legal instrument is in force when it is currently operative and binding on the parties or persons subject to it.
Supporting sources
A managing partner must ensure that compliance measures are operative so that all lawyers in the firm conform to the rules.
A premarital agreement becomes operative on the date of the marriage.
The occupancy continues only as an estate at sufferance when the tenant wrongfully remains without asserting superior title.
…proceedings in a cause already instituted and does not create the cause. A mandamus to an officer for delivery of a paper is in effect an original action and not appellate. Therefore the authority given to the Supreme Court by the Judiciary Act to issue writs of mandamus to public officers appears not to be warranted by…