The article contains a comparative analysis of legal terms in the British and American variants of the English language. The author points out that the British term is understood as the one belonging to the law of England and Wales since Scotland and Northern Ireland have a diff erent law system. The article contains a classifi cation of legal terms based on the absence or presence of diff erences between the British and American variants, as well as the character of diff erences. According to this principle legal terms are divided into fi ve categories: 1) terms with the same meaning, 2) terms having diff erent defi nitions, 3) terms expressing the same concept diff erently, 4) terms existing only in one variant (British or American), 5) terms used predominantly in one variant of the English language but occurring in the other variant. All the given similarities and diff erences are illustrated by examples. The paper also gives examples of diff erences in spelling in the two variants.