'Vampire law' and 'vibe coding' among top 2025 legal words
Have you ever heard of “vampire law” or “vibe coding?” If not, you’ll be able to learn all about them in Burton’s Legal Thesaurus, a specialized reference tool for lawyers and other legal professionals that was first published in 1980. They join other top new terms and phrases compiled this year by law professors and academics who are part of a committee tasked with updating the lexicon of law.
“We see it as a privilege to create something that really is a time marker,” says Cindy Thomas Archer, the chair of the Select Committee on Terminology for Burton’s and a professor of lawyering skills at the University of California at Irvine School of Law. “Being a part of this process every year allows us to reflect on what’s happening, what we’re thinking about, what we’re prioritizing, and we hope it continues to move conversations forward in important ways.”
Each year’s terms and phrases are chosen after committee members conduct their own research and solicit suggestions from others in the legal community, Archer says. For 2025, words related to technology and finance, as well as the assertion of individual rights, stood out to committee members, she says.
Gun rights advocates use the term “vampire law” when referring to statutes that forbid possession of firearms on private property without the owner’s permission, according to the Burton’s committee. It increased in popularity this year after the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear Wolford v. Lopez, a challenge to a Hawaii law barring concealed carry permit holders from bringing guns onto private property that is open to the public unless they receive permission from the property’s owner.
“Vibe coding” is an approach to programming that permits users with limited technical knowledge to write code using natural language prompts and the assistance of artificial intelligence models. Part of the “new era of ‘no-code’ development,” it could lead to increased liability issues, the Burton’s committee says.
There are 10 other top legal terms and phrases for 2025, including these:
• “Cog war,” which is short for cognitive warfare, describes the act of using false or misleading information to manipulate a foreign adversary.
• “Dark patterns,” referring to deceptive designs used online to manipulate consumers into taking certain actions.
• “Algorithmic wage discrimination” describes the act of paying individual workers—particularly gig workers—different hourly wages for mostly similar work. Differing wages are calculated using digital data relating to worker location, worker behavior and other factors.
• “AI personhood” is the idea of granting legal rights or status to advanced AI systems.
• “Day One rights,” which requires employers to notify employees of their rights and benefits, such as sick pay or unfair dismissal protection, on their first day of a new job; it also requires more employees’ rights to begin on their first day.
Many of these new terms and phrases, especially those involving technology, provide “ways of thinking about legal rights and duties we’ve had and how they are impacting us as we continue to move forward,” Archer adds.
Top legal terms last year included “coffee badging,” “hot-tubbing,” and “AI washing.”
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