Selected Lesser Grievances

There are lots of big issues facing the United States, the biggest of which is the existential threat to its continued functioning as a democracy posed by Donald Trump's candidacy in this year's Presidential election. And, this blog spends plenty of time thinking about those big issues.

But, the world is also full of things that aren't "big issues" but are minor annoyances and lesser grievances that it would be nice to see remedied, even if they aren't really make or break issues. This post recounts some of them.

Computer System Treatment Of Hyphenated Names And Similar Issues

* There ought to be a law that mandates that government and big business computer systems accommodate people who have hyphens, apostrophes, spaces, and just one or two characters in their names. This may have been an issue at the start of the computer age, but we have reached a point where it is no longer that hard to do.

Fraud

* We do a poor job of dealing with fraud perpetrated by phone, text message, email, social media, the Internet more generally, and the financial system. It should be possible to click a 9-1-1 style universal fraud reporting code and send reports of fraudulent activity instantly to the appropriate law enforcement agency and telecommunications providers, with no further effort from the person reporting it required. This should shut down the fraudster's phone number, and email accounts, social media accounts, and freeze any associated financial accounts almost instantly, and launch investigations as a matter of course into the perpetrators and into the institutions used by them to perpetrate the frauds. The cost of an individual fraudulent communication is small and the fraudsters count on that to shield them from investigations, which when they do happen aren't nimble enough to address it because the perpetrators are long gone. Yet, we have a system that is much better a dealing with the much less serious problem of copyright infringement than it is at dealing with fraud. 

* We should do a better job of dealing with deceptive business practices by credit reporting agencies that try to trick you into paying for services that they are required to provide for free.

* We should do a better job at shutting down businesses that dupe people into paying to get government services that are available cheaper or for free from the actual government.

* Credit cards should have PIN numbers the way that ATM cards do. This would dramatically reduce credit card fraud and reduce the incentive to steal credit cards.

* Food labeling should be more tightly regulated to discourage spurious and misleading health claims like "antibiotic free" in foods where antibiotics aren't allowed anyway, or claims that a food that ordinarily would have sugar but not fat anyway is "fat free".

Regulated Occupations

* We should have a central database of people who are sanctioned or "disbarred" from particular professions in a particular state or local jurisdictions, so that these people are prevented from going to some other state or local jurisdiction, or some other licensed occupation where the same conduct would also be disqualifying.

* The construction trades should be regulated at the state level, not the local level. This prevents an unreasonable barrier to entry for legitimate reputable construction contractors, which causes construction trade licensing to be ignored or overlooked, while also making it too easy for someone who has had their construction trade license rightfully revoked to just go to another locality that hasn't caught up with them yet.

Arrest Records

* We should also have a way of purging the official arrest records of people who are arrested or charged, but are ultimately not convicted of anything, from public records and databases (that do not at least disclose the exoneration with the arrest record report). Similarly, there should be a better process to purge or annotate criminal convictions that are vacated.

Mail, Package Delivery, And Porch Piracy

* The U.S. Postal System and all other package delivery firms should be liable for damages when it delivers a package to the wrong address (or doesn't deliver it at all), preventing the intended recipient from receiving it, even without requiring the sender to procure insurance, at least up to a certain dollar amount. 

* A parallel and similar system for dealing with fraud via mail to the one suggested above for telecommunications fraud should also be put in place. Violators (both firms and their managers and principals) should have their right to send mass mailings suspended for some period of time in addition to any other relief.

* A certain percentage of packages should have tracking chips that can be used to locate the packages if they are taken by porch pirates, allowing the perpetrators to be found, and creating too high of a risk for people contemplating porch piracy to consider doing so.

* Mutual funds should be required to make information about their funds publicly available, but mailing prospectus-like disclosure documents to their investors on a regular basis just kills trees without providing meaningful improvements in investor knowledge.

* The same is true of privacy policies. Require them to be made available in some standardized place, but don't mail them out to everyone connected to a business.

* Low advertiser postal rates for "junk mail" that don't reflect reduced costs for the postal system due to, e.g., pre-sorting, should be abolished and instead, all mail should have to pay first class mail rates. If it isn't worth sending a first class mail rates, it isn't worth bothering people with the unsolicited junk mail.

* Congressional franking privileges should be abolished and replaced with a budget for postage for each U.S. House and U.S. Senate office, based upon the population of the state in question for U.S. Senate offices. This privilege is widely abused by office holders and undermines the economic viability of the U.S. Postal Service.

* Mail-In Ballots should have business return postage type treatment so that the voters doesn't have to attack any postage to return their ballot through the mail, paid for by the governmental body conducting the election.

* Registered voters should indicate (in a database that is not public record at an individual level, just at a statistical level), their preferred language for election related information and communications. Thus, election related disclosures and ballots would go to voters only in their preferred language rather than in both English and Spanish with other language versions available upon request. This would make ballots more readable, and cut in half the amount of paper wasted in pre-election disclosures. It would also significantly reduce the burden on voters who need to receive translations into languages other than English or Spanish.

Long Ballots 

Ballots are too long, in part, because we have voters do too much. But long ballots discourage voting generally and lead to uninformed decision making.

* We should not elect, at any level coroners, surveyors, engineers, dog catchers, assessors, treasurers, clerks, or secretaries of state, who are supposed to be carrying out technocratic tasks with only limited discretion.

* Elections should not be administered by partisan elected officials, or by partisan political appointees.

* Judicial retention elections like the ones held in Colorado make ballots much longer (just short of half the questions on my ballot this year are judicial retention elections) and demand a great deal of effort from voters who try to make those decisions in an informed manner, but provide very little benefit. Typically only one or two judges in the entire state are not retained in any election cycle, and sometimes, none are. Only about 1% of judges are ever removed this way, which inadequate purges inadequate judges. And, a significant share of judges who are removed are removed for decisions that are legally required but unpopular. Simply put, the general voting public is ill-equipped to make this decision even with state supplied information pamphlets, and it is a great burden on voters that makes ballots too long. There might be a place for retention elections, but only in cases which are singled out as "high risk" in some reasonable manner, for the voting public to focus upon.

* In Colorado, the Taxpayer's Bill Of Rights, requires voters to approve tax increases and to authorize retention of revenues from existing taxes if those revenues grow fasters than a formula in the state constitution. I don't have a problem with the first kind of voting requirement for new taxes. But, votes on retention of revenues from existing taxes (called "debrucing" ballot issues, after Doug Bruce, the author of TABOR in Colorado) should not be required and make our ballots unnecessarily long.

* Similarly, while voters should have to authorize increased debt limits for local governments, they should not have to authorize incurring debt at levels previously authorized by voters and paid for with existing taxes, after the original debt is paid down, at least in part.

* The CU Board of Regents and the state school board, should not be chosen by the general public in elections, let alone, in partisan elections.

* Perhaps in addition to petitions to establish a minimum threshold of support for a ballot measure before putting it on the ballot for the general public to consider, citizen's initiatives should face a public opinion poll test and only be granted ballot access if it can garner at least, say, 35% support, in a public opinion poll conducted by a reputable and certified firm.

Notarization

* The requirement that statements made under penalty of perjury be presented in a notarized affidavit made under oath should be replaced with a rule allowing unnotarized declarations made under penalty of perjury in court documents, something that is already the case in the federal court system, and the court systems of Colorado and Utah, at least.

* Notarized but not otherwise witnessed wills are valid in Colorado. This should be the norm nationally.

Copyrights, Rights Of Publicity, And Privacy

Copyright laws are too strong for a digital age. Some examples:

* There should be more legally binding safe harbors for fair use. Far too many cases are in gray areas decided on a case by case basis by a particular judge and jury.

* Some version of a fair use defense or dramatic remedy limitation should be available in the cases where someone is sharing content made available by a copyright holder or a licensee for free on the Internet or via freely available broadcast television or radio.

* There should be a mechanism for mandatory licensing of orphan works and for translations of works that are not available in a particular language.

* There are overly expansive protections for derivative works in areas such a fan fiction that should be dialed back.

* Statutory damages in lieu of actual economic damages, and the availability of attorneys' fees in actions for copyright infringement, should also be greatly curtailed. In general, copyright remedies and rights should be closer to an unjust enrichment tort remedy and less like a property right. 

* Rights of publicity should be governed by a single, preclusive, federal law, not by a mishmash of state laws.

* Europe's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is far too expansive and far too protective of privacy rights to the detriment of other legitimate interests.

* The scope of the applicability of the GDPR to people who are not in Europe, but can have dealings with Europeans over the Internet is far too unclear.

Traffic Laws

* Speed limits should reflect the speed that an ordinary reasonable driver would travel on a road as it is designed. Local governments should not be allowed to set lower speed limits than the road conditions reflect in response to local community pressure. If a local government wants traffic to move more slowly than the legally authorized speed limit given the road conditions, it needs to redesign the road, rather than just creating a speed trap.

* When push comes to shove, bicycles should be regulated as pedestrians not as motor vehicles. They should go on sidewalks and designated bike paths in most cases, rather than being expected to share designated highways and arterial streets with automobiles. A bicycle crashing into a pedestrian is much less serious than a car crashing into a bicycle.

Debt Collection

* It should be a serious offense to try to collect zombie debts that are barred by the statute of limitations or have been discharged in bankruptcy.

* It should be a serious offense to try to collect debts from the next of kin of debtors who have not guaranteed the debt in writing, rather than the decedent's probate estate.

Medical Billing

* Until the day when we have universal health care, health care providers to patients with health insurance should be forbidden from trying to collect their bills directly from the patient beyond a health insurance policy authorized co-pay to be paid at the time of service. Any provider that accepts any payment from that patient's health insurance should be required to honor the health insurance company's disallowance of their charges. And, health insurers should have to pay the full allowed charge to the health care provider and then collect the patient's share of that charge under the insurance policy from the patient. Patients shouldn't be put in the middle and as a guarantor in the face of disputes between health care providers and health insurers. A patient should be able to know exactly what he or she will owe simply by reading their health insurance policy.

* Emergency rooms shouldn't be allowed to charge more to someone who errantly went to an ER instead of an urgent care facility for the same services. The task of getting someone to the right level of care takes medical knowledge and should be the responsibility of the health care provider.

* Health care providers shouldn't be allowed to charge different rates for the same work done at a hospital affiliated facility (which is often billed at a higher rate) than at another facility.

* When there are contingent fee lawsuits for personal injuries, health care providers with health care liens on the recovery should have to share the risk in a way that afford the injured person some benefit of the lawsuit according to a standard formula that doesn't have to be negotiated on a case by case basis.

Court E-Filing Discrepancies

* Court E-Filing systems should have much less authority to just reject filings. Instead, if there is problem with the way that the filling was put into the e-filing system, that correction should just be made by the system, and if there is a problem with the document filed itself, it should issue an order to show cause directing the filer to correct it in a clearly described manner before a reasonable deadline to prevent it from being stricken with a loss of the original filing date.

Municipal Ordinances

* Municipalities and local governments should not be permitted to punish ordinance violations with incarceration or arrest. Incarceration should be limited to violations of state laws.

* Colorado should abolish municipal courts and require municipal ordinance violations to be enforced in civil actions brought by city attorneys in county courts that are part of the state court system.

Expanding Fair Use

There is one major content based categorical fair use exemption from copyright. It is for parody. I would propose at least two others:

1. Advocacy. People who are advocating for a view or position want their works to be widely distributed and aren't creating content for the purpose of making a profit. Infringement of copyrights for works of advocacy should be categorically classified as fair use.

2. Scholarship. Academic scholars likewise want their works to be widely disseminated, so long as their works are properly attributed, and earn most of their incomes from salaries as professors or researchers, not from royalties earned on their academic work. Infringement of copyrights for works of academic scholarship that give attribution to the authors should also be categorically classified as fair use.

Selected Wishes

They aren't prayers, because there is no one to pray to and prayers don't work.

They are just select, somewhat realistic, wishes or dreams, and I have little ability to do much to make them happen or not.  

U.S. Politics

* Harris wins the Presidential election.

* Democrats win the U.S. House and the U.S. Senate.

* Democrats hold CO-8 and win CO-3 and maybe even CO-5.

* The filibuster is abolished in the U.S. Senate.

* The U.S. Supreme Court is expanded to 13-15 seats, allowing Harris to appoint 5-7 new liberal justices.

* D.C. gains statehood status.

* Trump is sentenced to and serves several years in prison on his current charges of conviction, is not released pending appeal, and is ultimately convicted of at least some charges in the three other criminal cases that were brought against him with the classified documents case dismissal reversed on appeal.

* Justice Thomas is punished for corruption.

* Abortion bans fall one by one, state by state.

* The MAGA movement collapses.

U.S. Culture And Daily Life

* Christianity continues to decline in the U.S. in favor of secular worldviews.

* The percentage of people who own guns falls.

* Crime rates continue to fall.

* Police become less likely to use excessive force and less likely to act inappropriate when accountability measures and training are improved.

* Life expectancies and general health improves with new medical advances and better public health measures.

* Southern and country culture, and cultures of honor ebb and wane.

U.S. Economics

* Electric vehicles increase their market share.

* Coal consumption continues to plummet.

* Petroleum consumption plummets.

* Fossil fuel dependent economies like Wyoming, Alaska, and Texas see huge, long term stagnation similar to what was seen in the Rust Belt.

* The U.S. becomes more urbanized.

* Anti-fraud enforcement becomes more successful.

* Lawns and grass landscaping become more rare in the arid West.

* Land use regulations are relaxed.

* Unnecessary occupational regulation is relaxed.

* Immigration remains substantial and undocumented immigrants are largely legalized.

* Copyright laws and other intellectual property laws are weakened.

International Affairs

* Ukraine wins its war with Russia.

* Putin dies or is removed from office.

* The Houthis are defeated in Yemen.

* Hezbollah is defeated in Lebanon.

* Iran's efforts to make war with Israel prove futile.

* North Korea and Russia cease to be able to support their large military forces and greatly reduce them.

* Countries with fossil fuel economies like Russia, Venezuela, and Saudi Arabia see long term stagnation as fossil fuels become less important in their economies, and this undermines their authoritarian leaning regimes.

Rants And Quick Hits

 * There really ought to be a law forcing firms to make their IT systems accept names that many current databases do not, such as hyphenated names, names with apostrophes, names with accented letters, single names with two words and a space, and names with only one or two letters in them. It is such a godawful pervasive form of discrimination against a specified class of people (that includes me, my son's girlfriend, and my wife and in-laws even before we married). It is also very easy to fix with only a modest amount of non-laziness.

* I similarly hate the limitations on file names in many Microsoft Products (One Drive/Sharepoint, here's looking at you) that other programs lack. This is one of Microsoft's many sins that is a persistent pain in the ass.

* There ought to be a defense to disabled parking offenses for someone who doesn't have a tag or license plate but is actually assisting a disabled person in their car on a particular trip.

* The construction trades really ought to be regulated at the state level, rather than having separate licenses for every municipality and for the unincorporated part of every county, usually without even any reciprocity system.

* Building codes should be a copyright free part of the public record. So should the Restatements of Law. It is unconscionable for authoritative sources of law to be available solely on a pay per view basis. If necessary, have the government use the power of eminent domain to buy out the copyright holders.

* Hurray for the iPhone abandoning under E.U. insistence, the lightning power connector in favor of a USB-C connection. The U.S. government should have done the same thing.

* I dread the potential merger of Kroger and Albertsons, which would put almost every "regular" grocery store in Colorado (in contrast to niche organic or gourmet grocery stores with higher prices) under common ownership except a few stores divested to Win-Dixie in an effort to appease regulators (which could easy close down a few years later). A grocery store monopoly in Colorado would be horrible for consumers, and would likewise be horrible in other states similarly impacted.

* Unpopular opinion, but 1950s houses and "mid-century modern" are extremely fugly, far more so than the new homes criticized for that today.

* U.S. cities really made an early strategic mistake in classifying sidewalks as easements that property owners have to maintain to a certain standard of maintenance and snow removal, rather than as public roads for pedestrians which would be maintained by the city as part of its general expenses from property tax and other revenues the way that city streets are handled. Sidewalks are a "network" asset that work only as well as the worst link in the network, and collectivized snow removal would be vastly more efficient (and prevent a lot of injuries and deaths of the elderly and infirm trying to do it themselves) than the status quo of homeowner clearing of sidewalks.

* Someday, when I am not dealing with more urgent repairs like the remedying of the removal of a structural wall that a contractor said wasn't a structural wall, I will get around to replacing the last couple hundred square feet of conventional lawn in my home with a lower maintenance xeriscape alternative. Bluegrass lawns make absolutely no sense in the arid western U.S. I really like the Western U.S. centered Sunset magazine aesthetic and cultural movement that is responsive to its local conditions in that regard and I am pleased to learn that is hasn't gone out of business even though it suspended publication for a number of months and isn't as widely available in grocery store magazine stands anymore:

In March 2020, with the magazine struggling financially due to loss of advertising revenue during the COVID-19 pandemic, the company put most of its employees on unpaid leave. During the pandemic, the company briefly ceased printing the magazine but returned to print with the December 2020 issue.

* In the same vein as xeriscaping, the Western U.S. should transition to something like the Old Mexico daily schedule that is quiescent in the hot midday, but has more public activity in the evenings. 

* Similarly, the American business and professional class should continue to recognize that business suits and ties invented to meet the needs of professional in London, Berlin, Paris, and Northern Italy are ill-suited to sweltering summers of most of the United States which are virtually unknown in Europe (most of which doesn't even routinely need air condition in the summer). French and British colonists themselves didn't feel so constrained when they presided over colonial governments in tropical Africa and India in shorts and short sleeves. Americans need not straight jacket themselves into Ataturk's mandate that businessmen and professionals in Turkey wear wool, European style suits and top hats in the early 1900s in an effort to "modernize" (even though his basic insight that cultural change in inseparable from modernization and economic development wasn't fundamentally wrong). We need to think more like the Japanese on the verge of ending a long period of isolation, whose Emperor sent emissaries out all over the world to see how other countries more advanced than them at the time did things and then picked, chose, and adapted Western ways of doing things in a way that was sensitive to their own local conditions and culture.

* The big picture is that we should be changing our culture to be in better harmony with the conditions of the world we live in, rather than being so tradition bound culturally, whether its yards, the hours we have dinner and work outside, or our clothing.

* The U.S. has backfilled its falling total fertility rate a.k.a. TFR (i.e. number of children per women per lifetime) with immigration to keep its population stable as it has undergone demographic transition with its economic development. The capacity of China, Japan, Korea, and Japan to do the same, in a manner that is within the realm of the politically possible is much more difficult. None of these cultures is very receptive to immigration. This is true even between these East Asian nations with a lot of shared history and culture. Korean migrants are ill treated in China and Japan. Chinese people aren't too welcome in China either. Korea has an officially sponsored pride in its national homogeneity although South Korean farmers who can't find wives are starting to secure wives from Southeast Asia especially. China's 1.4 billion people with dramatically falling TFR has a need for people to refill its workforce that greatly exceeds the supply of people willing to relocate there. Maybe it is good to have a smaller global population as we are approaching peak global population, to place less of a strain on our planet's carrying capacity, and maybe the demographic transition that comes with economic development reflects a buried hidden wisdom that a higher standing of living ideally supports fewer people.

* The similarities between much of the Islamic world and the Victorian era and early 20th century are striking. It suggests that the Islamic world may sooner or later experience a cultural transition similar to the West from the Victorian era to the present. In the fights over the hijab in Iran, we see echos of the 1920s flappers. Most Islamic countries are treating women a lot better now than they did half a century ago even though it can be hard to see when comparing these countries to the modern West. Even though Islam allows polygamy, Tunisia and Turkey have banned it as a matter of secular law that doesn't force anyone to do something that Islam bans. The death penalty and corporal punishment are much more common in the Islamic world than in the West (and this is also common in communist countries for some reason), but apart from holdouts like Iran and Saudi Arabia, its declined a lot just as it did in industrial era Europe. Countries like Iran and Turkey are genuine, if flawed, Islamic democracies, although Afghanistan seems to have regressed. What does the Islamic transition to modernity look like? How does a global transition to a post-petroleum economy impact that?

* The nation's legal system is really digging into Trump. On the civil side, he had to settle the Trump U. case, he lost the rape/defamation case, he lost a major motion for summary judgment in a case in New York related to asset value fraud. And then he has the New York criminal fraud case, the January 6 case, the Georgia election fraud case, and the Florida classified documents case, all on track as the election comes in. And, the insurrection disqualification cases are pending.

* In 1970s the G-7 countries contained 67% of global GDP, today it's only 30%. There is every reason to think that this trend will continue. It is easier to have a higher GDP growth rate percentage when you are copying economic solutions and technologies that someone else has already proven to work successfully than it is to come up with new ways to grow the economy from scratch. So the percentage gap between G-7 countries and non-G-7 countries in GDP per capita should narrow and at the same time, less economically developed countries are growing as their population grows at a higher percentage rate than more economically developed countries whose populations are often shrinking or stagnant. As the G-7 countries dominate the global economy less strongly over time, all sorts of things change, among them the character of international trade and the feasibility of an across the board export based economy like the U.S. had post-WWII because WWII destroyed the economic infrastructure of the rest of the world more than it did the economic infrastructure of the U.S. which just had to shift its factories from making swords to making ploughshares. Probably, we'll see more orientation towards domestic production and more specialized export markets in each country.

* Intellectual property laws and privacy laws need reforms. IP laws need to be weaker. Privacy laws need to be more manageable - our current reactions are too cumbersome and overrate privacy against other values, including free speech.

Common Misconceptions About Law

This is a list of common misconceptions people have about the law (to be clear, every statement below is false):

Sources of Law

* The law is mostly the same everywhere.

* The law is the mostly the same everywhere in the U.S.

* Legal terms almost always mean exactly one thing no matter where they are used.

* The law mostly fits a criminal law paradigm of statutes that prohibit you from doing something and impose a punishment if you do that.

* The constitution tells you everything you need to know about the law.

* Only the U.S. Supreme Court has jurisdiction to decide the constitutionality of something.

* Usually, a determination that something is unconstitutional involves finding that a treaty, statute, ordinance, or regulation is unconstitutional.

* The law is mostly contained in statutes.

* It is rarely necessary to look at case law or regulations to determine the meaning of a statute.

* The "common law" is the same in every state.

* Only one state or country's law applies to a business operating on the Internet. In a variant of this, the most important way to determine which law applies to a business on the Internet is where its servers are physically located.

* The law is static and has changed only a little over time.

* Modern U.S. law is very similar to modern English law.

* The Declaration of Independence creates enforceable U.S. law.

* The U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights creates enforceable U.S. law.

* International law consists mostly of legal rules that can be litigated in international courts producing judgments that matter.

Judges

* Judges are heavily influenced by their personal feelings about litigants and their personal relationships to litigants and are strongly biased against particular people.

* Judges can do whatever they want and the person who wins is mostly determined not by what the law says but by which side has the best lawyers which is mostly a function of much each side spends on their lawyers.

* Family court judges are intentionally or ideologically biased against men.

* Judges are basically umpires with no independent ability to interpret the law in different ways.

* A judge's political philosophy and judicial ideology have no impact on how a judge rules in a case.

* Judicial decisions are purely a matter of legislating from the bench.

* Judge are being dishonest when they utilize "legal fictions."

Dishonesty

* Criminal defense lawyers are bad people who unethically try to make it possible for people guilty of serious crimes to avoid responsibility for their actions by being acquitted at trial of all of the charges against them.

* It is unethical to represent someone you as a lawyer know is guilty or liable for wrongdoing.

* Pleading not guilty in a criminal case when you are guilty is perjury.

* Lawyers are allowed to lie.

* Prosecutors are routinely punished when a court determines that they withheld exculpatory evidence from a criminal defendant in a case.

* Negotiated compromises are dishonest.

* Cops are legally required to tell the truth to criminal suspects.

* Cops almost always tell the truth in court.

* Cops are routinely punished by their employers or a court when a court finds that they violated a criminal suspect's constitutional rights.

* Perjury in court is frequently prosecuted criminally.

* People are more likely to tell the truth when they are under oath or are making a statement under penalty of perjury.

* You can make an evidentiary objection to testimony presented in court on the grounds that the person giving the testimony is lying.

Certainty

* The law mostly involves general principles that can be stated at a high level of generality and logically applied to any new situation.

* If you know the facts of a case with perfect certainty you can know the legal consequences of those facts with certainty. Conceiving of the law as rules rather than standards.

* The law has a clear answer to every hypothetical situation one can imagine.

* Legal questions that don't have clear answers are rare.

* Traffic laws clearly establish that one person is at fault and another person is not at fault in a car accident most of the time.

* Jury trials are highly accurate at reaching outcomes consistent with the true facts and the law.

Arbitration

* Arbitrators have to follow the law based upon the facts presented to them the way that judges do.

* Arbitration awards can be reviewed on the merits in an appeal.

* Arbitration is usually less expensive than going to court.

* Arbitration is usually much faster than going to court.

* Arbitrators are not more biased in favor of one side over the other than judges are.

* You can only be compelled to arbitrate a dispute if you sign a contract agreeing to arbitrate the dispute.

* Only contract disputes are subject to arbitration.

Criminal Justice

* Criminal cases can be filed only if the victim files a complaint with a law enforcement officer.

* People who are released from prison after having their convictions overturned are automatically entitled to substantial compensation.

* People who are acquitted in criminal cases usually receive compensation for their legal fees and the disruption that their lives experienced.

* The police and prosecutors have an enforceable legal obligation to prevent, investigate, and prosecute crimes committed against you, if they can.

* People who commit crimes other than murder are usually caught and punished for their crimes.

* When a criminal law is repealed, people incarcerated for violating that law are routinely released from prison.

* The fact that a witness recants testimony provided in a criminal trial that gave rise to a criminal conviction makes it highly likely that the person convicted will have their conviction vacated and be released from prison.

* Prosecutors routinely cooperate in having wrongful convictions which they secured overturned.

Finality

* Mistaken findings of fact made in a trial can usually be corrected in an appeal.

* Mistakes made in hearings and trials can usually be corrected later, and information provided in hearings and trials can usually be supplemented after the fact. 

The Value Of Legal Training

* Lawyers are mostly charging people for the written documents that they produce.

* Any reasonably literate person can quickly learn what they need to know to effectively act as their own lawyer with a modest amount of self-study on the Internet.

* Doing legal work yourself saves money while also giving rise to few risks.

* Non-lawyers can learn to be competent judges with tens of hours to a couple hundred hours of training.

* When you have a dispute with someone, you can have a lawyer write the person you have a dispute with a letter for a minimal fee or no legal fee and the other person is likely to concede that you are right and cooperate.

* People who win legal disputes usually have their attorney fees awarded to them in the United States.

* A large share of losing lawsuits fit the law's description of a legally frivolous, groundless, or vexatious lawsuit.

The Effectiveness Of The Law And Justice

* The law is self-executing.

* People rarely get away with breaking the law.

* People almost always conform the behavior they would have taken otherwise to what the law requires. The law powerfully influences everyday behavior.

* The law almost always produces fair outcomes, unless someone incompetently makes a mistake in applying it.

* Every wrong has a legal remedy.

* All violations of constitutional rights and obligations have a legal remedy.

* There is always someone who is legally liable for the harm caused by an accident.

Contracts

* Economic pressure is enough to make a contract involuntary and invalidate it.

* Statements made by someone involved in a circumstance that gives rise to a legal case that aren't corroborated in writing aren't "proof."

* Contracts are never binding unless they are in writing.

* Contracts are only binding if you have read them and understood their terms.

Miscellaneous Other Specific Legal Issues

* Obligations to a child depend on the nature of the events that led to the child's conception and the relationship between the parents.

* Children must always take the surname of their father.

* In the United States, illegitimate children can't inherit from their fathers.

* You can't be an intellectual property infringer if you don't make a profit and give credit to the source of the work.

* Bank deposits are basically currency in a safe waiting for you to need to use it.

* Debts for fraud and other willful misconduct are automatically non-dischargeable in bankruptcy without any need for the creditor to take legal action to establish the nature of the debt in the bankruptcy case.

* Non-citizens don't have legal rights.

* The doctrine of "corporate personhood" usually hurts the average person in a legal dispute with a big business.

* People who engage in criminal conduct or civil wrongs in the course of their employment by a corporation are immune from liability for their actions.

* The U.S. Constitution, the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and the Declaration of Independence create a legal right to overthrow an unjust government.

* Texas has a right to secede from the United States.

A Proposal For Circuit Splitting Precedents

Background: What Is A Circuit Split?

The status quo rule in the federal courts is that a published decision of a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals (the intermediate level appellate courts in the federal court system) on a question of federal law is binding precedent on the courts whose decisions are appealed to the federal appeals court circuit of the panel making the decision and are persuasive authority in other federal appeals court circuits.

For example, if three judges in the 11th Circuit by a 2-1 margin, decide in a published appellate court opinion that cryptocurrency profits aren't income under the Internal Revenue Code, all U.S. district court judges and bankruptcy court judges in the 11th Circuit have to follow that decision. But this decision is only persuasive authority for a judge in the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado which is in the 10th Circuit.

Once a precedent is in place in a circuit, district courts generally can't deviate from that precedent unless the U.S. Supreme Court rules otherwise, or the relevant statute in a case of statutory interpretation, is amended.

Sometimes, judges on one circuit decide a question of federal law one way, a judges in another circuit decide a question of law another way. 

For example, even if a panel in the 11th Circuit decides in a published appellate court opinion that cryptocurrency profits aren't income under the Internal Revenue Code, a panel in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit might decide in a published appellate court opinion that cryptocurrency profits are income under the Internal Revenue Code.

When this happens, it is called a circuit split. The U.S. Supreme Court tries to resolve circuit splits granting certiorari to do so in many cases, but it doesn't handle enough cases to resolve all of them. So, when there is a circuit split, the meaning of federal law is different in different parts of the United States.

The Problem

The problem with this rule is that a decision as feeble as one made by just two judges on a three judge panel on a question of first impression that isn't subjected to review en banc or successfully appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, remains good law in a very large area of the country and is very hard to change, even if it is badly decided or creates inconsistencies in the overall framework of the federal law in question.

This particular post was initially inspires by the case of Mirage Editions, Inc. v. Albuquerque A.R.T. Company, 856 F.2d 1341 (9th Cir. 1988), which found, contrary to the copyright law first-sale doctrine, that the defendant could not buy a book, remove illustrated pages, add stuff to them and sell them, even though the defendant only used physical media and never made any copy of copyrighted material. They found that this infringed copyright not by copying but by making a derivative work.

There's a circuit split on the issue with the opposite position taken in Lee v. A.R.T. Co., 125 F.3d 580 (7th Cir. 1997) and in Peter Letterese And Associates, Inc. v. World Institute Of Scientology Enterprises, 533 F.3d 1287 (11th Cir. 2008). The decision in Lee also noted that “Scholarly disapproval of Mirage Editions has been widespread.”

This concern is also driven by the increasing partisanship of the federal judiciary which makes outlier decisions of two or three judges in a given federal circuit more likely to arise.

A Proposed New Rule

One way to mitigate the harm caused by circuit splits, albeit at the cost of certainty in any particular circuit, would be to downgrade the effect of a precedent, even in the circuit in which it was decided, from binding precedent to persuasive authority, on any point of law with regard to which there is a live circuit split that has not been resolved by U.S. Supreme Court ruling, statutory change in the law, or an en banc decision in the same case that the panel decided.

This would bring more judges into the process of considering the issue decided by the initial panel on the policy and precedent merits as a case of first impression, rather than pursuant to a precedent which has been seriously questioned.

If the panel decision downgraded to persuasive authority is well argued, it will still be followed. But, if it was poorly reasoned, other judges considering the issue will decline to follow it. 

This rule would also put more pressure on the U.S. Supreme Court and Congress to resolve legal issues upon which circuit splits arise. This pressure should be present because many firms and organizations and even individuals need to take an action which will ultimately be subject to legal review in more than one circuit and a circuit split cements the inability of these people to predict the legal outcome of that issue since they don't know where it will arise.

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.

Selected Fakemarks

One common literary convention in a variety of fictional settings, but especially webcomics and anime, is to avoid depicting real trademarks, to avoid promoting real companies and to avoid any claim of trademark infringement (even though "nominal use" of this type would almost never actually be infringing). 

But trademarked products are pervasive in daily life, so any reasonably realistic work of fiction in a modern setting needs to reflect this reality. This is often done with what I call "fakemarks" that may echo a real world trademark or trade name or famous title of a fictional work, or may be entirely original, for products in the fictional world depicted. Some are wry satire, others are simply phonetically or visually similar, or tweak a semantic concept in the original.

I have collected a number of examples of them, which I present below.

Constructive Solutions

Here are some selected legislative ideas to address public policy issues (UPDATED January 22, 2022):

Immigration

* Reduce barriers to naturalization by, for example, reducing or eliminating naturalization and exam fees, waiving citizenship and English language proficiency tests for certain candidates (e.g., graduates of U.S. high schools or colleges, graduates of foreign high schools or colleges with English as the primary language of instruction, people who have served in the U.S. military and their spouses, interpreters and former interpreters for the U.S. military or U.S. government, spouses of U.S. citizens with U.S. citizen children, adults over age sixty-five, and developmentally disabled persons), allowing accommodations for disabled test takers, and by making tests easier and more available;

* reduce or eliminate the fees for obtaining a passport or replacement passport;

* establish a path to citizenship  legislation for DACA program beneficiaries;

* clear up legal immigration backlogs, at least for close family and especially for the Philippines which has very low rates of undocumented immigration and a huge backlog; 

* replace criminal penalties with civil penalties for the lowest level immigration crimes (e.g. illegal entry);

* establish a class of licensed independent paraprofessionals authorized to act in lieu of lawyers in immigration cases;

* establish a right to counsel for all minors and all indigent persons in immigration cases;

* complete scrap and rebuilt from scratch the immigration court system which is notorious for arbitrary and capricious decision making that varies wildly from judge to judge;

* establish a statute of limitations (e.g. ten years) on deportability after illegal entry into the U.S., or upon overstaying a visa;

* establish a "immigration detainee's bill of rights" together with provisions allowing those rights to be enforced in private litigation and by a government immigrant advocate who is independent of the Department of Homeland Security;

Election Law and Access To Identification

* use federal/state/local/private funds to get photo IDs for people such as kids leaving high school, newlyweds who have changed their names, people leaving prison and/or jail, welfare beneficiaries, homeless people, senior citizens, and people with lost or stolen IDs. Also register them to vote.

* prepay mail in ballot postage (or make it free per federal law);

* fix the electoral vote counting law;

* lower state voting ages to sixteen years;

State and Local Elected Offices

* replace elected coroners with a state medical examiner's office;

* make county surveyors, county assessors, county treasurers, and state treasurers senior civil service positions rather than elected offices;

Health Care

* offer healthcare copay/deductible guaranteed loans/grants for people with health insurance;

* prohibit submission of provider charges directly to patients who have health insurance (require them to be sent to insurer instead with patient responsible only for amounts determined between health insurance and provider to be reasonable and only to extent to patient's share under health insurance);

* provide public funding for health care for people injured in crimes;

* provide public funding for health care for people injured in non-work related accidents (possibly piecemeal legislation, e.g., for people hurt outside a motor vehicle by uninsured motorists or in hit and runs);

* establish a large private endowment to finance reproductive health care that government programs and/or health insurance won't pay for;

* establish more new medical schools so that they country can produce more doctors each year (the number of medical school slots has remained almost constant for many decades despite a growing population);

Landlord-Tenant and Property Maintenance

* provide public funding for non-negligent moving to storage of the property of evicted people and homeless people;

* make renter's insurance mandatory for residential renters, with the landlord having a duty to insure that this requirement is complied with;

* establish some sort of sensible cap on lost future rent damages in residential leases terminated early (e.g. X months, or Y% of the amount claimed for Z months after the first X months);

* establish a right of a tenant to hire licensed (if applicable), bonded, and insured professionals to repair certain serious defects in property conditions at landlord expense if landlord fails to act within a statutorily set period of time after receiving legal notices from tenant;

* replace failure to maintain property ordinance violation fines with laws authorizing local governments to maintain properties at owner's expense;

Criminal Justice and Civil Rights

Criminal law 

* establish statutory exclusionary rule for confessions or testimony obtained using deception from governmental officials (possibly not as broad as 5th Amendment exclusionary rule in terms of fruit of the poisonous tree, for example);

* ban consideration of acquitted or uncharged conduct in sentencing (give this policy change retroactive effect);

* criminalize guards having sex with incarcerated people under their supervision;

* criminalize law enforcement officers having sex with people while on the job in the absence of a pre-existing relationship and an absence of exercise of law enforcement authority;

* make payments at a statutory rate in lieu of public defender representation for criminal defendants who have private criminal defense attorney and are acquitted;

* create a right to compensation without proof of fault or actual innocence for people whose incarceration pursuant to a conviction for a crime is vacated for reasons other than a pardon, and are released;

* create a right to compensation without proof of fault or actual innocence for people whose pre-trial arrest or incarceration is found to have not been supported by probable cause;

* end cash bond for pre-trial release in most cases;

* remove marijuana (and chemically or biologically related drugs) from the list of Controlled Substances under the federal Controlled Substances Act and retroactively pardon everyone convicted of mere possession under the Act for marijuana offenses;

* establish grants for private innocence project type non-profits;

* eliminate the authority of municipal governments to impose a sentence of incarceration for an ordinance violation;

* prohibit an appellate court from remanding a case reversed for an abuse of discretion by the judge in a criminal case to the same judge;

Civil law

* impose vicarious liability on governments for civil rights violations by their employees without independent proof of fault (if they don't promptly throw the violator under the bus by firing the employee promptly after a lawsuit or complaint is filed, and by establishing as a defense that the employee was acting contrary to the employer's policies);

* eliminate qualified immunity for governments that are vicariously liable for civil rights violations even if employees benefit from qualified immunity for their personal liability for civil rights violations;

* establish civil liability for violations of constitutional rights that arise from negligence, reckless, or willful and wanton conduct;

* give courts in civil rights action the authority to ban defendants found liable for violating civil rights from serving in law enforcement and/or possessing firearms;

* eliminate the immunity, absolute or qualified, from civil liability of any judge, prosecutor, or other elected official who has been convicted of a crime or ethical violation for conduct related to that crime or ethical violation with the statute of limitations on this claim deemed to arise only when the person bringing suit receives notice that the official was convicted of the related crime or ethical violation;

* end civil forfeiture, not incident to a judgment in a civil action against the owner as a named defendant or a criminal conviction of the owner, of assets that are not inherently contraband, and do not allow law enforcement agency budgets to economically benefit from civil forfeiture proceeds;

Enforcement

* create a state agency to investigate and prosecute law enforcement and prosecuting attorney violations of the law, civil rights violations, and ethical violations appointed by public defenders and/or civil rights lawyers;

Income Taxation

* treat tips as self-employment income, rather than wage and salary income, for income tax and withholding tax purposes;

Bankruptcy

* treat every claim acknowledged by a debtor in a bankruptcy in the debtor's schedules as one for which a proof of claim has been filed;

* require any entity majority owned or controlled by a bankruptcy petitioner to be included in the bankruptcy petitioner's bankruptcy;

* establish a new bankruptcy chapter for probate estates that limits relief to the automatic stay;

E-filing mechanics

* fully automate services of process upon the debtor, all parties that have filed claims in the case, and all creditors listed by the debtor in the e-filing system;

* allow creditors to file a proof of claim in a bankruptcy with an online form;

Limitations on claim discharges

* make it easier to prove that fraud/willful misconduct debts are non-dischargeable in bankruptcy without retrying underlying facts of a debt, and allow extensions of time to object to their discharge for excusable neglect or lack of notice;

* relax the standard for discharging student loan debt in bankruptcy by eliminating its non-dischargeability ten years after repayment begins, and in case where no degree has been is earned when repayment begins, where no professional licenses is obtained in a preprofessional program when repayment begins, in cases of wrongful educational institution or student loan lender practices, in cases of disability, and in other cases of unreasonable hardship;

Claim priority

* eliminate the priority in bankruptcy for tax debts other than withholding tax debts and tax liens;

* subordinate awards of punitive damages, debts for non-compensatory fines and penalties, statutory damages unrelated to actual compensatory damages, late fees, and the portion of interest on debts that exceeds non-default interest, to general creditors in bankruptcy,

* give priority in bankruptcy cases over other general creditor debt (mostly long term financing debt) to trade creditors whose debts would otherwise be general creditor debt;

* treat independent contractor payments for personal services as wages for purposes of bankruptcy priority;

Insider preferences and compensation

* claw back payments made to or authorized within one year prior to bankruptcy to equity owners;

* claw back payments made to or authorized within one year prior to bankruptcy to managers and executives in excess of (1) fair market value for the services rendered, (2) the compensation rate payable immediately prior to one year prior to bankruptcy, or when hired if first hired after that date (excluding any discretionary bonus payments), or (3) $50,000 per month (whichever of the three is smaller, but not less than minimum wage).

* limit payments to managers, executives during a bankruptcy to (1) fair market value for the services rendered, (2) the compensation rate payable immediately prior to one year prior to bankruptcy, or when hired if first hired after that date (excluding any discretionary bonus payments), or (3) $50,000 per month (whichever of the three is smaller, but not less than minimum wage).

* limit payments to legal counsel during bankruptcies pursuant to administratively set limits on total fees, contingency fee rates, and hourly rates;

* automatically cancel all equity interests of an entity that voluntarily files for bankruptcy with the authorization required to do so under state law (with a strict deadline for equity interest owners to assert that a bankruptcy was ultra vires to prevent this cancellation), and in any other case, as soon as it is established that the debts of the bankrupt exceed the assets of the bankrupt; 

Exemptions of assets from creditors claims and debtor income

* require individual debtors in bankruptcies to contribute to the bankruptcy estate an amount equal to the maximum wage garnishment allowed under state law for three years (or the equivalent in the case of a self-employed debtor) absent extraordinary circumstances set forth in the statute, in lieu of the current means-testing rule;

* place a uniform national dollar cap on the homestead exemption available in bankruptcy (e.g. $100,000 indexed) notwithstanding higher exemptions available under state law (but without increasing exemptions allowed under state law);

* allow tenancy-by-entirety protections from creditors only in joint bankruptcies of the owners;

* place a uniform national dollar cap on the exemption for retirement assets in bankruptcy (e.g. $500,000 indexed);

* place a uniform national dollar cap on the priority for alimony and child support in bankruptcy (e.g. $500,000 indexed);

Arbitration, Class Actions, And Jury Trial Waivers

* ban arbitration for child custody and establishment of child support matters;

* ban binding pre-dispute arbitration for intentional tort litigation;

* ban binding pre-dispute arbitration clauses for consumers, non-institutional investors, and non-unionized employees;

* allow arbitration awards in circumstances where arbitration is allowed to be reviewed for disregard of applicable law or failure to follow the arbitration rules agreed to by the parties;

* prohibit arbitration procedures from changing the substantive rights of the parties under non-arbitration law;

* require an occupational license to serve as an arbitrator and make that license subject to revocation for misconduct by an arbitrator;

* require public disclosure of arbitration awards in circumstances where arbitration is allowed;

* clarify statutorily that contract formation in cases where an arbitration agreement is present is for a court to decide and clarify that arbitration agreements must be in writings signed by the person against whom they are to be enforced unless select expressly specified exceptions to that requirement apply;

* ban class action waivers;

* ban jury trial waivers in connection with torts arising from personal physical injuries, and intentional torts other than business torts;

Private Law

* pass an anti-pre-emption statute (common in uniform and model laws) that  allows the law of ERISA plans and federal government provided benefit plans (e.g. federal government employee life insurance and retirement benefits) to be supplemented by common law and equity (and non-ERISA specific state law more generally) from the state where the plan administered or where the federal government employee is domiciled;

* establish a national index of marriages, civil unions, publicly filed domestic partnerships, marriage dissolutions, legal separations, and similar proceedings;

Debt collection

* subject assignees and purchasers of debts and business creditors of consumer debtors (subject to a de minimus exception) to the same obligations as debt collectors under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act;

* establish strict liability sanctions for creditors, debt collectors, and attorneys seeking to enforce debts barred by a statute of limitations, a bankruptcy discharge, or res judicata (i.e. "zombie debt") in either a lawsuit or bankruptcy;

* prohibit making death an event of default under a contract in circumstances to be set forth in a statute, where prejudice to the other party under the contract is avoided;

Unlawful business practices

* make it a deceptive trade practice for a business to continue to use a contract, contact term, or procedure of a business has found to be void as contrary to public policy or illegal in a lawsuit in litigation with the business or in litigation in which an officer or director of the business participated with another business;

* make it an ethical violation for an attorney to draft a contract containing a term that the attorney knows is contrary to public policy or illegal under a binding precedent or statute, or to request such a term in a transactional negotiation;

Copyright

* in copyright infringement actions, eliminate statutory damages and limit awards to compensatory damages for lost profits of the copyright owner and/or disgorgement of amounts by which the infringer was unjustly enriched, together with costs, attorney fees, and interest;

* in copyright infringement actions, limit attorney fee and expert witness awards as part of court costs (combined) to not more than one-half of the damages awarded or $500, whichever is greater;

* impose a statutory civil fine upon anyone filing a wrongful takedown notice under the DCMA;

* establish mandatory copyright licensing for orphan works, translations of works that have not been translated in a timely fashion, and certain other transformative or independently innovative derivative works;

Worker's Compensation

* require worker's compensation death benefits to be at least comparable to the death benefits commonly awarded in wrongful death tort cases even in cases where a worker does not have a surviving spouse or surviving dependent children;

Debt Collection And Civil Procedure

Attorney fee and cost awards

* establish a statewide hourly rate for attorney services and paralegal services that counts are reasonable and/or fixed amounts for particular tasks, for use in fee shifting cases (at least in sanctions cases), in lieu of actual litigation of reasonableness on a case by case basis;

* in actions for money damages in which the prevailing party is entitled to attorney fees, limit the reasonable attorney fee and expert witness awards as part of court costs (combined) to not more than one-half of the damages awarded (or sought in the case of a prevailing defendant), or $500 (indexed), whichever is greater, even if the attorney fees and expert witness fees incurred were otherwise reasonable;

* allow a legal malpractice plaintiff to recover the plaintiff's attorney fees in the legal malpractice action as an element of damages;

Service of process and notice

* replace service of process by publication of a legal notice in a newspaper of record for several weeks, with service by process by notice in one of several public notice registries available in person at the courthouse and for free online (at no charge to the litigant) the entries in which have an index number that can be used to also serve the notice via text message, email, voice mail, postcard, and posted notices;

* establish a system in which an "interested person" such as a judgment creditor, a spouse, a former spouse with outstanding obligations owed to them, a secured creditor, or a creditor under a written contract, can automatically receive notice of the death of a person, the change of name of a person, probate proceedings concerning a person, bankruptcy proceedings concerning a person, lawsuits against a person, and personal property lien filings against a person;

* establish a system in which a person can automatically receive notice of new real estate record filings concerning a particular parcel of real property, and lawsuits relating to possession of a particular parcel of real property;

* allow substituted service of process of new lawsuits (i.e. service of process under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 4 or the equivalent) to be made upon "gatekeepers" such as doormen or entry area receptionists, when access to a residence or business is restricted;

E-Filing related practices

* provide e-filing access to pro se parties;

* eliminate the requirement of a certificate of service for parties that e-file court documents since the e-filing system would handle this function automatically with third-party verifiability;

* create a publicly available database of contact information for attorneys and eliminate the requirement that attorneys with disclosed registration numbers in legal filings include their contact information on each document they file;

* give parties in cases with pro se litigants access to contract information about those litigants and eliminate the requirement that attorneys with disclosed registration numbers in legal filings include their contact information on each document they file;

Enforcement of money judgments

* give judgment liens in real property statewide scope where the judgment creditor can provide sufficient data about the judgment debtor to prevent similar name confusion;

* allow judgment creditors to gain access to the tax records (including information returns filed such as W-2s, K-1s and 1099s), and credit records, of judgment debtors, as a matter of course, at any time when judgment creditors would have a right to obtain information from judgment debtors directly about their assets and in bankruptcy cases;

* allow judgment creditors to execute upon ownership interests of judgment debtors in entities by giving notice of a judgment to the registered agent of the entity without regard to the form of the entity or whether its shares are certificated or not, or any buy-sell agreement of the company;

* establish detailed procedures and exhaustion of remedies requirements that must be followed in contempt of court proceedings alleging a willful failure to pay money or property in connection with a judgment or court order including a child support or alimony order;

Statutes of limitations

* make filing a lawsuit within the statute of limitations an element of every cause of action, that is part of the prima facie case which must be established in the complaint to state a claim, and upon which the burden of proof is on the person bringing the claim;

Procedures related to unlawful business practices

* give notice (in a publicly accessible document)  to the state attorney-general in the state where a lawsuit is filed, and also the state where an entity defendant is organized or an individual defendant is domiciled, of any lawsuit or counterclaim filed by a consumer or employee against a business or employer (so that someone can see patterns and practices of allegations whether or not the cases are settled), including product liability tort claims;

* give notice (in a publicly accessible document) to the state attorney-general in the state where a lawsuit is filed, and also the state where an entity defendant is organized or an individual defendant is domiciled of all court judgments in which a contract, contract term, or procedure of a business is found to be void as contrary to public policy or illegal;

* require a business to affirmatively disclosed that a contract, contact term, or procedure of a business has found to be void as contrary to public policy or illegal in a prior lawsuit, in litigation with the business related to that contract, contract term, or procedure.

Ethical obligations of attorneys in litigation

* require an attorney filing a civil action, or representing a party in a civil action, to disclose any assertion of law made that the lawyer knows is contrary to a controlling precedent (subject to an ongoing duty to supplement during the pendency of the litigation) even if the assertion of law does not violation Rule 11 (permitting good faith arguments to change the law) and subjecting the attorney to sanctions if the attorney's client does not prevail on the merits on that legal argument if it is not disclosed or withdrawn promptly after being identified;

* establish an ethical duty of an attorney at any stage of a proceeding (even an appeal) not to argue inferences regarding facts that are known to be factually untrue (even if the untrue facts are not themselves presented as evidence) before a tribunal in a civil matter without disclosing this reality to the tribunal;

Federal subject-matter jurisdiction

* eliminate ordinary diversity jurisdiction in cases in which both plaintiff and defendant have a U.S. domiciled party;

* eliminate general federal question jurisdiction in cases involving only non-government associated parties;

Federal personal jurisdiction

* restore the rule that general personal jurisdiction may be asserted over any entity that has any office for the conduct of business or a registered agent in a state;

* allow federal district courts where the plaintiff resides to assert personal jurisdiction over a defendant or third-party witness or garnishee who is not subject to the personal jurisdiction of any one U.S. state, or the District of Columbia, or any one U.S. territory, but does have sufficient contacts with the United States as a whole to be subject to its personal jurisdiction if the United States had been a single U.S. state;

Jury trials

* eliminate by statute, the right to a jury trial in state court in civil actions to enforce a written contract or lease signed by the party to be charged, or to sue in the alternative in such as case, for promissory estoppel or unjust enrichment;

* establish a right to a jury trial in state court with respect to counterclaims in civil actions in which there is no right to a jury trial on the claims in the complaint (i.e. repeal the "well-pleaded complaint rule" for jury trials);

Appeals

* prohibit an appellate court from remanding a case reversed for an abuse of discretion by the judge in a civil case to the same judge;

Pre-litigation discovery

* Allow a special proceeding called a pre-litigation inquiry, under a new rule of procedure in both state and in federal court, to be brought to allow prospective plaintiffs to engage in pre-litigation discovery regarding facts in the exclusive control of a prospective defendants, at the expense of the plaintiff, upon a showing that all elements of a cause of action except those requiring evidence in the exclusive control of a prospective defendant have been established, that is limited to facts in the exclusive control of a prospective defendant that are necessary to state a claim for relief (in response to new, more strict, pleading standards in Twombly, Iqbal, Warne, and related cases); 

Quality Of Life Laws

* nationalize can and bottle deposit laws;

* make public sidewalks public property for purposes of snow removal and maintenance;

Spam-like activity

* do anything that works to crack down on extended warranty solicitations, such as requiring a license number that must be disclosed in any solicitation in any medium to sell an extended warranty;

* do anything that works to reduce junk calling, including criminalizing caller ID spoofing and requiring phone companies to enact systems that prevents or makes it much more difficult to engage in caller ID spoofing;

* require all unsolicited telephone communications made, text messages, and emails to be recorded with records maintained for three years;

* establish "know your customer" laws related to firms that facilitate payments to people who are conducting fraudulent schemes resulting in payments from many people (ten or more that are in the aggregate in excess of $10,000) that can be triggered by complaints from people who have made payments or authorities as well as from business negligence, and require any company that engages in robocalling, mass faxing, mass texting, and mass email marketing (even if legal) to disclose that fact to their financial and payment systems providers;

* require a federal license (which is available as a matter of right to individuals who can do so legally, that can be revoked civilly for misconduct) to engage in robocalling, robo-faxing, mass texting, mass email marketing, and mass mailing through the U.S.P.S.