The article is devoted to the analysis of the «law-making» category. In one of the blocks, historical foundations are considered. Law-making, as a phenomenon of social reality, played and plays a significant, if not primary, role in the development of many civilizations. Yes, it is difficult to overestimate the importance of ancient sources of law for the legal «saturation» of the relevant state entities. Legal development is always accompanied by an appropriate or «inappropriate» understanding of justice (ancient sources are crystallized through ordeals, talion, blood revenge, etc.). Another vector of consideration is theoretical generalizations: law-making activity is the transformation (with the help of legal prescriptions) of social relations into a system of legal relations; it is a process of familiarization with the legal needs of society, accompanied by the corresponding established procedures; this is the legally established procedural activity of state bodies to create new legal norms; this is the direction of the state’s activity, related to the official consolidation of legal norms, through the formation of prescriptions, their changes, additions and cancellations. Law-making is aimed at creating and improving a single, internally consistent system of norms that regulate social relations. The legal nature of law-making is determined by the process of giving legal norms a universally binding character. Law-making is a special type of legal activity. Thus, continuing the definitional series related to the category «law-making», we would like to emphasize the definition given in the Draft Law «On Law-making Activity» No. 5707 dated 25.06.2021 (the most modern draft of the normative legal act submitted for consideration, associated with the analyzed category). Law-making activity is the activity of planning, development of a draft of a normative-legal act (its concept) and adoption (issuance) of a normative-legal act, the purpose of which is legal regulation and/or protection of social relations. Law-making activity in Ukraine is regulated by the Constitution of Ukraine, this Law, other laws of Ukraine, and secondary legal acts. The publication also defines the basis of the law-making process (justification, updating, improvement and changes in laws and by-laws). A separate direction of research is focused on practical issues related to law-making activities, in particular, optimization of the work of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine. Key words: law-making, law-making activity, procedures of law-making activity, tasks of the law-making process, forms of the law-making process, factors determining the law-making process.