The current article surveys an assortment of legal issues identified by the editors that relate to the malpractice sphere. However, this represents only a small part of the total legal medicine picture. The interaction of law and medical care in the United States today encompasses a broad array of specific points of contact between physicians' professional activities and various public bodies and private entities. Several articles by other authors will appear in subsequent issues of CHEST and flesh out much more comprehensively both the topics outlined briefly here and other legal questions that concern contemporary members of the medical profession.