Mishpatim comes from shafat, to judge, to govern, to set right. A mishpat is a ruling, a decision handed down in a real case, and the Torah's mishpatim read like exactly that: if a man does this, then this follows. They are the applied case law of the covenant.

The traditional pairing is instructive. Mishpatim are the commands whose reasoning you can see, the ones a thoughtful person might have reasoned toward on his own. Chuqqim are the engraved ones that do not explain themselves. Both are Torah. They simply meet the mind differently.

English gives "judgments" in KJV, "rules" in ESV, "laws" in NIV, and every one of those pulls the word toward a courtroom or a rulebook. The Hebrew is closer to justice worked out in ordinary life, the shape of what is right when it touches actual cases.