> Has anyone done a good con/art legal system? (i.e. one that doesn't
> just calque an extant system or project their own morals as mores that
> are just always followed)

I have a basic idea of the way that Yivrian law works, though I
haven't worked it out in great detail. The system is broadly similar
to the Latin idea of paterfamilias, but I invented it separately
before I understood the Latin system.

The basic legal unit is the _ennura_, roughly "clan", which is a
collective defined by all people sharing a common living ancestor,
reckoned on the mother's side. Husbands retain membership in the
ennura they are born into but also gain membership in their wife's
ennura, while children belong only to their mother's ennura. The
oldest person in the ennura, the ancestor of all other members, is the
_ennarod_, and the ennarod has complete and total control over the
lives of the members of the ennura. There is no legal recourse against
your own ennarod, and indeed little legal recognition of individuals
at all as opposed to the ennura and its ennarod.

Conflicts between members of an ennura are handled by the ennarod.
Conflicts between ennarods, if not resolved locally, can be appealed
to the _akan_. The akan is a hereditary office that, strictly
speaking, confers only the right to judicate disputes within a certain
group of ennarods, but which typically also confers wealth and certain
other privileges. In urban centers a third rank of _kenda_ developed
who judged between akani in the same way that the akan judges between
ennarodi.

Punishments were in principle at the sole discretion of the akan, but
they were strongly influenced by customary scales of retribution.
Since the decisions of the akan were recorded in an official register,
these formed a body of case law that exerted a progressively greater
constraint on subsequent decisions.

Theft was usually restituted threefold. Murder and rape were both
punishable by capital punishment, although the offended ennarod could
choose to accept a payment of redemption instead. There was an
additional category of crimes known as offenses to _tarsa_ ("honor"),
comparable to libel or blasphemy, which could be very harshly
punished.

Normally, the violent death of a family member would constitute an
offense against the ennura that demanded restitution. Because of that,
execution was usually preceded by an act of expulsion from the ennura,
rendering the condemned a _nakran_ or "clanless person". A nakran was
a legal non-person, and so could safely be pursued and executed.
Execution was always carried out by the family of the offended, rather
than by official representatives. Offenses within a clan could in
extreme cases also result in expulsion, making the offender a
permanent non-person.

There's more (the legal framework for inheritance was pretty complex),
but that's enough for now.

-- 
JS Bangs
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"Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle" -Philo of Alexandria