The craft of lawyering often calls for peering into the future-foretelling how new laws will be construed, how constitutional doctrine will evolve, what practice areas will be hot or cold. And a new year beckons, pristine as new fallen snow.

So step right up and take the 1992 legal prognostication quiz. Test your skills. Compete for coveted awards. (First prize: a 30-minute videotape of Moira Lasch cross-examining "sex machine" William Kennedy Smith. Second prize: a 60-minute tape.) Bill the time to continuing legal education.

(1) American lawyers who open offices in Moscow and other cities in the former Soviet Union will end the year looking: (a) smart; (b) dumb; (c) for something to eat.

(2) The most insufferable lawyer in the United States will be: (a) Alan Dershowitz; (b) John Doggett; (c) Alan Simpson; (d) Edward Kennedy;(e) Richard Nixon; (f) someone new.

(3) Robert Strauss, the Washington superlawyer who became ambassador to the Soviet Union in 1991 only to see it disappear, will close out 1992 as: (a) ambassador to the Commonwealth of Independent States; (b) ambassador to Russia; (c) ambassador to Uzbekistan; (d) ambassador to Japan; (e) a Washington superlawyer.

(4) The most sensational televised trial of 1992 will involve: (a) a man and a woman; (b) Long Dong Silver; (c) a murder; (d) a financial fraud;(e) police brutality; (f) an incompetent prosecutor; (g) Michael and Kathy, last seen at Au Bar.

(5) Justice Clarence Thomas will: (a) finally (and for the first time) decide what he thinks about Roe v. Wade; (b) finally read it; (c) vote to uphold damage awards in federal sexual-harassment suits; (d) in his first written opinion, refer to his grandfather; (e) pose for Cosmopolitan.

(6) Justice David Souter will: (a) vote to upholdRoe v. Wade; (b) vote to reaffirm and extend theban on state-sponsored school prayer; (c) getmarried; (d) pose for People magazine.

(7) The following will end the year with no clearposition on whether Roe v. Wade should beoverruled: (a) Clarence Thomas; (b) David Souter; (c) Sandra Day O’Connor; (d) George Bush; (e) Warren Burger.

(8) Anita Hill will: (a) take a visitingprofessorship at Yale Law School; (b) sign a bookcontract for big bucks; (c) run for public office; (d) inspire an episode of "L.A. Law"; (e) confessto erotomania; (f) appear on the "Phfl DonahueShow."

(9) The Senate investigation into the leak ofAnita Hill’s allegations to the press will: (a) fingerSen. Howard. Metzenbaum; (b) finger Sen. PaulSimon; (c) finger Anita Hill; (d) land NationalPublic Radio reporter NinaTotenberg in jailforcontempt of Congress; (e) accomplish nothing.

(10) Leading feminist legal scholars will declarethe following to be a form of rape: (a) sexualharassment; (b) the Miss America Pageant; (c) themissionary position; (d) Clark Gable’s approach tokissing in "Gone With the Wind"; (e) nightlynews footage of President Bush jogging; (f) DanQuayle’s golf game.

(11) Leading liberal academics will declare thefollowing to be a form of racism: (a) the NCAA’seligibility rules; (b) the Scholastic Aptitude Test;(c) Huckleberry Finn; (d) Zionism; (e) allunapproved synonyms for "African-American";

(12) (f) Dante’s "Inferno"; (g) "Othello." Alan Dershowitz’s favorite new client willbe: (a) LaToya Jackson; (b) John Gotti; (c) GusSavage; (d) Jimmy Hoffa; (e) Elvis; (f) SaddamHussein; (g) the highest bidder in terms of cash;(h) the highest bidder in terms of publicity.

(13) The following will confess to youthfulindiscretions with marijuana: (a) Dan Quayle;(b) Moira Lasch; (c) Bill Clinton; (d) BorisYeltsin; (e) C. Boyden Gray; (f) Richard Nixon.

(14) Michael Milken will spend next NewYear’s Eve: (a) in prison; (b).at home in California;

(c) at Times Square with Maria Maples; (d) on ayacht with Ivan Boesky; (e) at Au Bar withMichelle Cassone.

(15) Roy Black’s next big client will be: (a) William Kennedy Smith again; (b) Sen.Edward Kennedy; (c) Clarence Thomas; (d) 2 LiveCrew; (e) Neil Bush; (f) a wealthy drug-dealer;(g) a wealthy non-drug-dealer.

(16) The Supreme Court will: (a) overrule Roev. Wade; (b) finish gutting the right of habeascorpus; (c) allow state-sponsored prayer athigh-school graduation ceremonies; (d) extendbroader constitutional protection to property rightsthan they’ve had in 50 years; (e) uphold anordinance banning cross burning and other formsof hate speech; (f) send tobacco stocks tumbling inJune.

(17) In its most surprising decision of the year,the Court will: (a) reaffirm Roe v. Wade; (b) voteto hear arguments on whether the 14thAmendment’s incorporation doctrine should bereconsidered; (c) legalize marijuana; (d) rule thatfederal agents illegally entrapped a Nebraskafanner who ordered kidporn through the mail.

(18) The trial of Manuel Antonio Noriega willend in: (a) convictions for drug trafficking andmoney laundering; (b) convictions for moneylaundering only; (c) acquittals on all counts; (d) a hung jury; (e) his face on a negative ad for aDemocratic presidential candidate.

(19) The next foreign potentate brought inchains to America to face criminal charges willbe: (a) Fidel Castro; (b) Pablo Escobar; (c) AbuNidal; (d) Saddam Hussein; (e) Muammaral-Qaddafi; (0 John Major.

(20) The following Supreme Court justices willretire: (a) Harry Blackmun; (b) Byron White; (c) John Paul Stevens; (d) Sandra Day O’Connor; (e) William Rehnquist.

(21) President Bush’s next nominee for theCourt (if any) will be: (a) Kenneth Starr; (b) EdithJones; (c) Phyllis Schlafly; (d) John Danforth; (e) Robert Bork; (0 Patrick Higginbotham; (g) Moira Lasch.

(22) If a Democrat wins the presidency, hisfirst attorney geifieral will be: (a) Mario Cuomo; (b) Patricia Wald; (c) Warren Christopher; (d) Moira Lasch; (e) Clark Clifford; (f) WillieHorton.

(23) The Republican platform will say: (a) abortion is murder; (b) good Republicans can support abortion rights; (c) neither; (d) both.

(24) It will also say that the party: (a) opposeshiring quotas; (b) supports set-asides forminority-owned business enterprises; (c) neither;(d) both.

(25) The Democratic platform will make itperfectly clear that the party: (a) supportsaffirmative action; (b) opposes quotas; (c) doesn’tknow the difference.

(26) After more than three years of drug warringby President Bush, the number of hard- coreaddicts will be: (a) higher than when he tookoffice; (b) lower; (c) about the same.

(27) The population of the nation \s prisons andjails will be: (a) less than 500,000; (b) about800,000; (c) more than 1 million; (d) more than 2million; (e) higher than ever before in history.

(28) Various judges on lower federal courts willfind that the new Civil Rights Act; (a) requiresemployers to give job preferences to members ofstatistically underrepresented minority groups; (b) forbids employers from doing so: (c) both; (d) neither.

(29) The Supreme Court will: (a) affirm the federal appeals court decision overturning theIran-Contra convictions of former NationalSecurity Adviser John Poindexter; (b) reverse it; (c) decline to review it.

(30) An independent counsel’s investigation offormer HUD Secretary Samuel Pierce Jr. willleave Pierce: (a) under indictment for corruption;(b) convicted; (c) exonerated; (d.) unindicted but"looking sleazy; (e) a completely forgotten man.

(31) The retrial on corruption charges of E.Robert Wallach, friend of former Attorney GeneralEdwin Meese III and benefactor of Wedtech. willend in: (a) a conviction; (b) an acquittal: (c) a hungjury.

(32) The number of lawyers in the United Statesat.year’s end will be closest to: (a) 500,000;(b)600,000; (c) 700,000; (d) 800,000: (e) 900,000; (f) 1 million; (g) 2 million.

(33) The most dramatic development in"L.A. Law" will be: (a) the death of LelandMcKenzie; (b) the reincarnation of RosalindShays; (c) a menage a trots involving Jonathan,Tommy, and Zoe; (d) yet another hair color forAnn Kelsey.

My predictions are: (1) a; (2) a; (3) b; (4) a, c; (5) b; (6) a, b; (7) c, d, e; (8) d; (9) e; (10) a, b, c, d; (11) a, b, c, d, e, g; (12) h; (13) c; (14) a; (15) g: (16) a, b, d; (17) d; (18) a, e; (19) none; (20) b; (21) f; (22) a; (23) d; (24) d; (25) a, b, c; (26) a; (27) c, e; (28) a, b, c, d; (29) c; (30) d. e; (31) b; (32)d;(33)c.