The article deals with the challenges that arise when we try to comprehend the concept of «mechanism of law». The author analyzes and systematizes various points of view on the issue of its scope. Considering the ideas existing in legal science about the action of law, the nature of the relationship between the action of law and the activity of legal subjects, the author concludes that it is incorrect to identify the mechanism of action of law with the system of legal remedies used by subjects to achieve legally significant goals. It is proved that the mechanism of law is a sequence of stages reflecting the logic of the movement from the emergence of a legitimate interest to its implementation by legal measures, among which a special role is assigned to legitimate state coercion. The author reveals the most significant characteristics of the mechanism of action of law. Firstly, an idea of its scope allows us to describe the stages of the named mechanism (which the author proposes to consider the manifestation of law, familiarization with law, individual legal regulation and the implementation of law). Secondly, the difference between the mechanism of action of law and the mechanism of action of other social regulators makes it possible to better understand the study of the impulse that activates the mechanism in question and its driving force.