With 2013’s exit, we are now four days into 2014. As the year ended, everyone was coming up with their year-end lists — the Top 10 __________ (insert your item here) of 2013.

I’ll admit I was tempted to do the Top 10 Legal Stories from 2013, but everyone already knows (Affordable Care Act, Same Sex Marriage). So for our nascent 2014, I thought I’d give you a list of the Top 10 Legal Issues We Take For Granted Everyday, But Rely Heavily On In Our Daily Lives.

Number 10: You can go to the movies (or read a book or listen to music). Remember when you watched a movie on VHS and the FBI warning would appear at the start of each tape? The FBI was gently reminding you that the entertainment we love to consume is protected by federal copyright laws. Without copyright laws, there would be no “free market” for intellectual property and Arthur Conan Doyle’s estate would not have profited from Sherlock Holmes until last week, more than 80 years after his death. (Last week Sherlock Holmes became part of the public domain.)

Number 9: You can eat without needing to read Upton Sinclair (and throwing up). Next time you have a Libertarian friend complaining about oppressive “government regulation”, remind him that while government regulation has its negative aspects, legal regulations have their upside, like not dying from dinner. (Upton Sinclair wrote a book, The Jungle, in 1906 that exposed the conditions of the meat-packing industry in Chicago and it lead to the passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act.)

Number 8: You can hang out with your friends and family during the holidays (and even after) if you want. One of the most overlooked rights in the First Amendment is the right to “peaceably assemble.” This right was expanded by the Supreme Court to include the freedom of association in NAACP v. Alabama in 1958. Basically, you have the right to hang out with people you like.

Number 7: You can feel secure in your person and property. Number 7 sounded awfully lawyerly. We move through our days fairly confident that people won’t slug us or take our stuff, because if they do the police will come and arrest them. While we all have moments we worry about being victims of crime, just think how often in your day that you don’t and you will be more grateful for the criminal code.

Number 6: You can make lists for the newspaper, write letters to the editor, write obnoxious comments on standard.net or Facebook (or say other things). It wouldn’t be a newspaper if I didn’t say how wonderful the freedom of speech and freedom of press are. The free market of ideas is protected and institutionalized by the law. Maybe we should call it the Legally Protected Market of Ideas.

Number 5: If someone does something stupid (and unintentional) that hurts you, you can still get compensation for your injuries. For all of human history, accidents happen. Yet the law has grown up to protect us even from accidents. No, the system isn’t foolproof, but the law has made the world a safer place. Products are safer. Workplaces are safer. Driving is safer. The sobering thought next time you hear a lawyer joke about “ambulance chasers” is to realize that in all likelihood someone who read this column wouldn’t be alive to read it, if it weren’t for tort (personal injury) law requiring companies and people to act responsibly and carefully.

Number 4: The law gives lawyers something to do. Admittedly, this was a selfish choice.

Number 3: It is 2014, not 1984. Despite all of the media discussion about digital privacy (a topic for another time), we haven’t descended into a total Orwellian dystopia of Big Brother watching everything we do. The very fact that our society can discuss how we should allow our government to use “Big Data” is evidence that the law, while requiring our vigilance, is doing its job.

Number 2: You can buy things. Every law student is required to take a course in Contracts the first year of law school. Our entire economy is built on the legal concept of contracts. Smiths, Fresh Market or Harmons offer. The shopper accepts. Consideration is exchanged. A receipt is given. Contract complete. This type of contractual transaction took place to bring every item into your home. A contract was even behind the piece of paper and crayons that created the drawing stuck on your refrigerator.

Number 1: You have a place to live. Our entire conception of owning real estate is a legal creation, dividing up and creating a market for land. Fights over land lead to the entire concept of the Wild West, rather than today’s Utah, the Mild West. Even if you are renting, you couldn’t do that without a landlord who was secure in holding the title to the land. So as you curl up with Saturday’s paper, wherever you are sitting is a piece of land that the law has secured for your chair.

Maybe my list isn’t as exciting as stirring up the current legal controversies, but it should be a reminder as to why the law has given 2014 a big head start on being a Happy New Year.

E. Kent Winward is an Ogden attorney. He can be reached at 801-392-8200 or creditcorrection@gmail.com.