Lawyers are required to take continuing legal education courses, typically 15 credits a year. Some states mandate ethics courses as well. Here’s a sampling of the topics from a recent stack of brochures that crossed my desk — they’ll give you an idea of the wide range of practice areas your fictional lawyers may be involved in, and maybe spark an idea or two:

Auto Injury Litigation – Start to Finish

Payroll Law Bootcamp

Medical Malpractice — Expert Witness Strategies

Hydraulic Fracturing Land Lease Negotiations

Medicare Requirements in Injury Settlements

Quiet Title Actions (just tell it to sit down and shut up, or you’ll send it to bed without any dinner!)

Prior Appropriation Water Rights (as Snoopy says, I don’t even understand the lunch menu)

Collection Law from Start to Finish

Estate Administration Procedures: Why Each Step is Important (lots of story fodder here)

Drafting School Handbooks and Policies

LLC or Inc.? Entity Selection for a Small to Medium Sized Business (Anybody else think of The Exorcist when you hear the word “entity”?)

Human Resource Law

The Art of Settlement

HIPPA Compliance for Lawyers: The New Requirements

Social Security Disability: Advanced Issues & Solutions

Farm Injury Litigation: A Plaintiff’s Guide — includes determining liability, finding insurance coverage, maximizing recovery from multiple wrongdoers, workers’ comp, and other sources, OSHA regs, defective machinery design, and proving damages

Several courses on land use issues, understanding surveys, title insurance, and boundary disputes

Litigating School Bullying & Cyberbullying Lawsuits

Law Practice Management

Construction Defects

Marijuana in the Workplace

Authenticating Social Media and Email Evidence

And a postcard for the annual On-Campus Interview Weekend at the Law School, for firms looking to hire.