Fun fact: If a drone drops out of the sky and hits a car traveling on the highway, it's technically considered a traffic collision. That's the kind of icebreaker you can only pick up at the “All About Drones: Legal, Practical and Educational Applications” panel at the ABA Tech Show in Chicago.

The panel session was led by Kenton Brice from the University of Oklahoma College of Law and Russ Cochran, general counsel for the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs Control.

Cochran encouraged those in attendance to call drones what they are: a tool. But he was also realistic enough to know that other people not view the matter quite so simply.

“We don't have too many presentations like this on ball-peen hammers,” Cochran said.

Legal disputes regarding the ownership of air space over private property date back to United States v. Causby, a Supreme Court case involving a military aircraft that flew so low that it literally scared a farmer's chickens to death. The court held that ownership of the land included dominion over the lower altitudes (which in the case of the farmer was about 83 feet above his property).

While chickens might not be too crazy about low-flying aircraft, police find drones useful for gathering evidence or scoping out any threats that might be waiting for them inside a given location.

Though there are no Supreme Court cases dealing specifically with drone use, law enforcement still has to comply with laws that differ from state to state. Per Cochran, there are 18 states that regulate the ways that law enforcement makes use of drones.

Only 13 of those currently require search warrants, but Cochran suggested that trends in the way the courts are approaching technology—the Supreme Court ruled in Riley v. California that cell phone searches require warrants, for example—point to more on the horizon.

“You see the trend where case law is going. We've got to do it right. That means that you need to develop your probable cause,” Cochran said.