In this paper, I consider the many popular representations of jurists and the workings of justice in the Arabian Nights. By investigating tales in the Arabian Nights and other related story collections and folktales, I examine the various ways in which such narrative portrayals reveal and reflect societal anxieties, fears, and prejudices about the jurists, the legal process, the law, and justice. In focusing upon the Arabian Nights and folkloric materials, I contrast elite and popular attitudes toward legal authorities and the law more generally. In the first section of the paper, I examine descriptions of judges' behavior in the Arabian Nights and compare the relatively large number of stories relating to the judicial misconduct such as the receipt of bribes, amorous involvement with the litigants, and other inappropriate behaviors that call into question the validity of judges' rulings. I argue that judges in the Arabian Nights are often portrayed as sacrificing and succumbing to baser desires. While doubtless such tales were entertaining, I argue that such descriptions reflect the doubts and apprehensions that many had about the validity of legal scholars' claims to autonomous legal authority. In contrast to these stories, I also discuss several motifs that display cleverness and wisdom of judges in the face of difficult decisions. In the second section of the paper, I consider how various stories describe the interactions of common people with the legal process. In particular, I am interested in exploring how popular notions of justice and fairness were explicitly framed in contrast to the workings of Islamic law and how the narratives of legal justice related to the larger narrative structures in the stories found in the Arabian Nights. Throughout this paper, I compare similar motifs in other literary collections (adab) and also their continued presence in popular oral folklore. In the conclusion to this paper, I examine some of the similarities and differences of popular portrayals of figures of literate authority to those texts written for literate and cultural elites. I also consider parallels to popular representations of figures of religious authority in other religious and cultural milieux.