It closely follows Doug's guidelines for a survival knife found elsewhere on this site. it also happens to be about the max length for a pocket folder (my opinion). I doubt it's for legal reasons... you can find a place where almost any knife is illegal. Freakin' Texas has a city (Austin?) where locking folders are illegal. Texas. That's just... wrong.

The lock is an AXIS lock. I have a couple of other Benchmades with the lock. I've never hung from it by a rope or anything, but it looks and feels very strong. In order for the lock to fail, you'd have to either shear the lock pin or change the shape of the handle (steel). It's a nice design.