Jurisprudence is the study and theory of law. Scholars of jurisprudence, or legal theorists (including legal philosophers and social theorists of law), hope to obtain a deeper understanding of the nature of law, of legal reasoning, legal systems and of legal institutions. Modern jurisprudence began in the 18th century and was focused on the first principles of the natural law, civil law, and the law of nations. General jurisprudence can be broken into categories both by the type of question scholars seek to answer and by the theories of jurisprudence, or schools of thought, regarding how those questions are best answered. Contemporary philosophy of law, which deals with general jurisprudence, addresses problems in two rough groups:

Answers to these questions come from four primary schools of thought in general jurisprudence:

Also of note is the work of the contemporary Philosopher of Law Ronald Dworkin who has advocated a constructivist theory of jurisprudence that can be characterized as a middle path between natural law theories and positivist theories of general jurisprudence.

David B. Wexler is a Professor of Law at the University of Puerto Rico in San Juan, Puerto Rico, a Distinguished Research Professor of Law at the James E. Rogers College of Law, Tucson, Arizona, and the Director of the International Network on Therapeutic Jurisprudence.

Wexler is credited with first discussing the therapeutic jurisprudence perspective in 1987. He is a consultant on therapeutic jurisprudence to the National Judicial Institute of Canada, and has served as a Fulbright Senior Specialist.

Ronald Myles Dworkin, FBA (born December 11, 1931) is an American philosopher and scholar of constitutional law. He is Frank Henry Sommer Professor of Law and Philosophy at New York University and Emeritus Professor of Jurisprudence at University College London, and has taught previously at Yale Law School and the University of Oxford. An influential contributor to both philosophy of law and political philosophy, Dworkin received the 2007 Holberg International Memorial Prize in the Humanities for "his pioneering scholarly work" of "worldwide impact." According to a survey in The Journal of Legal Studies, Dworkin was the second most-cited American legal scholar of the twentieth century.

His theory of law as integrity, in which judges interpret the law in terms of consistent and communal moral principles, especially justice and fairness, is amongst the most influential contemporary theories about the nature of law. He advocates a "moral reading" of the United States Constitution, and an interpretivist approach to law and morality. He is a frequent commentator on contemporary political and legal issues, particularly those concerning the Supreme Court of the United States, often in the pages of The New York Review of Books.