Airbus Flightcontrol laws
Just to explain it in a few words so that most of the readers and not airbus pilots understand.
1. Normal law: You got all the protections, highspeed, slowspeed protection, etc..
2. Normal law, protections lost:
You only got the markings on the PFD, but there will be no intervention from any flightcomputer if you go over a limit in bank, pitch or speed. ( hope this is right, a few years back that I flew it )
3. Direct law. Now the plan flys direct inputs from the stick and any smoothing is gone. You can do a roll, or whatever...
Please, this is a short answer in three sentences to the not airbus flyers and of course there a little things that have to be noted too, but are going very much into the detail. But I used to explain it in the beginning to my students like this, so they had a first idea about the system.