Before we can discuss notaries, we must take a brief digression into the difference between the common and civil law.

The Mexican legal system is not a variant of the common law system used in Britain, America, and other English-speaking countries. Rather it is best to think of it as a different ‘operating system’, which has the same aims, but works differently ‘under the hood’. This guide explains the rules of their system.

The key difference is that the code is the law:

• In common law, judges’ decisions in past cases, known as precedent, become the law itself. The law is an evolving story that judges continue to write. A good lawyer must know thousands of cases to argue how their client's situation is similar.
• In civil law, the law is already written down. It lives in comprehensive documents called Codes: the Civil Code, the Penal Code, the Commercial Code. The law is a detailed, pre-existing rulebook. A judge’s job is not to create law, but to strictly and logically apply the existing rules to the facts at hand.

Unlike in a common law country, where contracts can be made in writing, verbally, or with a nod, where wills can be scrawled into tractors, and promises enforced without there ever being a contract, civil law is structurally far more focused on the procedure. While in some cases contracts can be created verbally, in others, like real estate transactions, a specific form is required to make them valid.

Civil Law comes from Roman Law and has a pyramidal structure. At the tip of the pyramid lies the national Constitution and the International Treaties that nation has signed.

Below constitutional law are Reglementary Laws. These are general laws that apply at the federal level, to the whole country, such as *Ley de Amparo* or *Ley Federal del Trabajo* (worker’s laws).

Each state has their own local laws that must abide by the constitution and reglementary laws. These state or regional laws include the civil and penal codes — this means there are often slightly different codes for each state.

The system is designed to run on clear, objective, documentary evidence that meets the requirements directly from the text of the code. Notaries are responsible for ensuring that those legal documents are accurate, including for contracts, shareholder’s meetings, wills, real estate transactions, and most trusts.

Therefore, for specific contracts — (or legal business) notaries, as the people who guarantee that any particular piece of written text is accurate

In the US or UK, a "notary public" is simply a person who verifies your identity when you sign a document. In Mexico, a *Notario Público* (Public Notary) is a central and necessary figure. They are an elite lawyer who has won a license from the state to act as a guarantor of legality. Their job is not only to witness your signature; it is to grant fe pública, or public faith.

When you buy a house or form a company before a *Notario*, they are not just a witness. They are the professional who drafts the instrument to ensure it perfectly complies with the Civil Code or the General Law of Commercial Companies. They certify that the act is legal. Their seal turns a private agreement into a public, indisputable fact. They are guardians of the code.

In Mexico, the process is king. A lawsuit is essentially a long, methodical administrative procedure. It is about following the correct steps and filing the correct documents in the correct order and within the correct timeframe. A procedural error can be worse for your case than a weak argument.

There are two specific concepts anyone dealing with Mexico should understand, as they define the relationship between the citizen and the state.

The amparo is perhaps the most important creation of Mexican law. It is not a simple appeal. It is a shield.

It is a lawsuit you can file against any act by any authority — a police officer, a government ministry, a judge, even Congress — when you believe it violates the human rights guaranteed by the Constitution or international treaties. If a judge issues a ruling that violates your rights, you file for amparo. If a new law is unconstitutional, you file for amparo.

The amparo acts as a constitutional check on the entire state apparatus. It is your most powerful tool to force the government to play by its own rules.

Jurisprudencia is where the Mexican system borrows a concept from common law, but with strict rules. The term is a "false friend" — it does not mean "jurisprudence" in the English sense of legal theory.

In Mexico, when the Supreme Court (or the Collegiate Circuit Courts) rules on five consecutive, similar cases in the same way, with no contrary ruling in between, their interpretation becomes binding on all lower judges in the country. This is called jurisprudencia por reiteración.

It is not seen as judges creating new law. It is seen as them issuing a definitive clarification of an existing law that was ambiguous or unclear. It is an official interpretation, not an invention.

Farier facilitates in the process of finding and requesting notary services and produces tech products to make the work of notaries quicker and more effective.