Twenty-Five Hot Legal Issues

I am a lawyer who sees the issues presented by my clients and the issues I get inquiries about from potential clients. In that capacity I also read essentially all the new published decisions of the Colorado Supreme Court, the Colorado Court of Appeals and most of the new decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court, receive updates in some legal areas from regular services to which I subscribe, and read the Colorado Bar Association and Denver Bar Associations monthly publications on a regular basis.

I sometimes participate in providing answers at Law Stack Exchange and Politics Stack Exchange (where I am a moderator), regularly read How Appealing, the Volokh Conspiracy and at least three law professor's blog (in the sidebar), a blog about the legal profession (About the Law), a blog about legal issues with national security implications (Lawfare, in the sidebar), and economics and politics sites that routinely discuss legal issues. 

I also encounter emerging or increasingly relevant legal issues in the general mainstream media (e.g. CNN, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Denver Post), as people ask about or discuss issues on Facebook.  

As a result, I have some sense of what areas of law are emerging, more relevant than they have been previously, or are in a state of flux. 

This post identifies twenty-five of those legal areas (yes, what constitutes one or multiple legal issues is somewhat arbitrary, one could vary the number simply by being more of a lumper or more of a splitter):

1. Jurisdiction, choice of law, and tax issues pertaining to remote work both interstate and international.

2. Jurisdiction, choice of law, income tax, sales and VAT tax, copyright, patent, rights of publicity, defamation, intellectual property licensing, occupational and professional licensing, business licensing, European and California privacy law, terms of service contracts, online fraud remedies, harassment and cyberstalking, obscenity, human trafficking, and revenge porn considerations that apply to Internet commerce and activity.

3. Privacy laws, in general, including those related to health information, doxing, cancel culture tactics, educational information, and information about Internet activity.

4. Laws about the legality of audio and video recording of conversations and events.

5. Non-competition agreements and non-disclosure agreements. 

6. International sanctions laws, war crimes laws, anti-terrorism laws, and extraterritorial jurisdiction.

7. Cryptocurrency issues, especially with regard to income and estate taxation, duties to disclose assets, and money judgment enforcement.

8. Election law (especially election administration law), treason and sedition law, and governmental liability.

9. The propriety of national injunctions, especially in federal public law cases, and issues of forum shopping.

10. Separation of powers issues in the federal government.

11. Dormant commerce clause limitations on legislation.

12. Laws regulated to COVID and public health restrictions.

13. Issues related to abortion law in the U.S.

14. Issues related to gay rights.

15. Gun control.

16. Family law issues in non-traditional families (i.e. in families other than married couples who children, if any, are all traditionally conceived children of both spouses, and other than divorces of such couples), and in non-traditional reproduction means (like surrogacy and IVF).

17. Indian tribe related adoptions, international adoptions, open adoptions, stepparent adoptions, same sex couple adoptions, and means by which a father's parental rights can be terminated to facilitate an adoption.

18. Partition law, i.e. the law of disentangling co-owners of real property outside the context of a divorce.

19. Home owner's association related disputes.

20. Disputes between neighbors regarding property lines, trees, and noise remain surprising relevant and often, surprisingly complex. 

21. Issues related to owning real property abroad.

22. Legal issues related to partial marijuana decriminalization.

23. Laws related to black box AI and machine learning decision making, and AI autonomy.

24. Laws related to the civilian and military of drones (especially airborne drones).

25. The legal status of non-citizens in the U.S. both documented and undocumented, of areas outside U.S. states in U.S. jurisdiction, and of Indian country.