Sorry for the late notice, but I just found out about this. Nominations for the 2007 Weblog Awards close on Monday. These awards go far beyond law blogging, with nominations being accepted in 49 different categories. To Nominate To nominate a blog, you’ll need these three pieces of information: (1) the name of the blog; (2) the URL for the blog; and (3) the URL for the blog’s RSS or Atom feed (to get the last of these, right-click on the subscription link for the blog and copy the link address). You can click on the logo in the right sidebar (the logo in this post will not work) for…
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The Week in a Graph
As you get ready to enjoy your weekend, I thought I’d offer this picture of the last week of blog traffic. Believe it or not, there are some interesting things here. The first thing I noticed was the near perfect symmetry in the weekday points. (The first two data points are Saturday and Sunday, the last five are Monday through Friday). Too bad it looks like a dunce cap. Then I thought, wow, this really does describe some weeks. A slight uptick in productivity on Monday as we get back from the weekend, ramping up to its midweek peak, then declining again toward Friday. I’ve heard you should try never…
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Gold . . . Pure Gold
I post a lot about legal writing, usually with reference to briefs or judicial opinions. But what about blogs? If you saw my Simply the Best Law Blogs post, you know that Decision of the Day is among those I listed. Yes, the analysis is good, the posts are extraordinarily timely, and the Ninth Circuit gets its fair share of coverage . . . but I also keep reading it because of writing like this (my emphasis): This Ninth Circuit criminal appeal is a cautionary tale about why you should do background checks on employees before you hire them – especially the white collar ones. The defendant was hired as…
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La Meme Chose – Simply the Best Law Blogs
Unless my blog is the only legal blog you look at — and what are the odds of that? — you’ve probably run across this meme elsewhere. Law bloggers are being asked to name their top 10 law blogs. Recognizing the faults with these types of lists, noted by (at least) Robert Loblaw and Robert Ambrogi and perhaps other participants in this meme, I should point out that my “best of” list is naturally skewed toward blogs relevant to the subject matter of my own. Which, of course, leaves out innumerable terrific legal blogs. I encourage everyone to check out my blogroll for additional quality blogs. I am delighted to…
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New Links in Sidebar
I’ve added RSS feeds to the right sidebar, below the category listing, with the self-explanatory headings of “Blogosphere Coverage of California Appeals” and “Blogosphere Coverage of the Ninth Circuit.” These feeds are of search results from Google Blog Search for keywords designed to return results in line with these topics. Two things I am still experimenting with. First, I haven’t figured out a way to exclude links to my own posts, so some of the titles will look familiar. Second, I may be tweaking the search terms in the next few days if I don’t see the content changing much from day to day. Give it some time if the…
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Site Upgrade Notes and Request for Assistance
I upgraded the blog from WordPress 2.2 to WordPress 2.3 overnight. You may see some minor fluctuations in the site as a result. For example, I have removed the site stats from the right sidebar because the plug-in does not seem compatible with this new version of WordPress. No big loss. Nobody was looking there to see that I have posted more than 71,000 words in 226 posts, right? As far as commenting goes, comment previews seem to be working. The Blogfollow plug-in does not seem to be working, but I’d appreciate it if someone else would try posting a comment to this post so I can be sure the…
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BlogRush Widget Added to Sidebar
Regular readers will notice the addition of the BlogRush widget in the right sidebar. Go ahead, take a look. You can’t miss it. The widget displays headlines and blog (or author) names from feeds of legal blogs registered with BlogRush. Just click on a headline in the widget — after you’ve read the brilliant new content on this blog, of course — to go to the corresponding post on the linked blog. BlogRush is a blog syndication network designed to increase traffic to its members. Every time that widget loads, I earn “syndication credits” that get my blog posts exposure in the BlogRush widgets on other legal blogs. Click my…
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A Plug for “Old School” Research
Thanks to the Second Opinions blog, I found Law Dawg Blawg today, which has this post summarizing an article at Legal Times by a Big Law partner about his concern that young associates rely too much on online legal research tools, and what his firm did to encourage young associates to get into the library and utilize print resources. This should be of particular interest to “old school” attorneys. I suspected that some lawyers were moving away from print because this blog gets hits from law firms running searches in Google. I don’t expect to replace Westlaw anytime soon, but I find it interesting that the searchers at these firms…
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New California Law Blog
Matthew Stucky, a newly admitted attorney in San Diego, launched the Cal. Civ. Blog three days ago. He describes his blog as “self-serving” because it is intended to force him to keep up with recent civil decisions, and any information it provides to others is a by-product of that goal. This is far more humility than most bloggers have (including me)! Matthew would seem to be a blogger that even Judge Kozinski — who famously derided bloggers for their lack of humility — would like. Matt, welcome to the blogosphere, welcome to the bar, and good luck with both. I think launching your blog this early in your career is an excellent idea, and I’m sure we will…
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Woo-Hoo! We’ve Hit the Big Time!
One sort, anyway. My post on alternative fee arrangements in appellate practice is featured in Blawg Review #123 hosted by Texas Appellate Law Blog. According to the Blawg Review website: Blawg Review is the blog carnival for everyone interested in law. A blog carnival is a traveling post about a topic or theme. For example, there’s Carnival of the Capitalists, concerning business and economics, while Grand Rounds is about medicine and healthcare, and Blawg Review has topics discussed by lawyers, law students and law professors. Each weekly issue of Blawg Review is made up of article submissions selected from the best recent law blog posts. The blogger that puts together…
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More Internet Commentary about Judges
Legal Pad (a very good blog regarding legal issues in California) brings our attention to CourthouseForum.com, a 2-year old website with a directory of more than 27,000 judges and a discussion forum for commenting on them. Before you visit the site, check out Legal Pad’s post for a preview of some of the comments. Says Legal Pad about the commenters: “And boy are they candid.” You may recall my post about an ethics complaint brought against a Florida lawyer who posted highly negative comments about a judge on a local internet forum.
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BlawgWorld 2007
If you’re relatively new to legal blogs — and even if you’re not — you might want to check out BlawgWorld 2007, a collection of posts from around the legal blogosphere, and published in PDF format by Technolawyer. Robert Ambrogi, who follows legal websites at his Lawsites blog, has a detailed critique of the PDF publication here, which garnered some equally detailed responses. Blawgworld 2007 is available for download from Technolawyer here.
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Updated Report on Cases Citing Blogs
Concurring Opinions has a new report on cases citing blogs. Looks to them like citations to blogs may be slowing down. The Law Blog Metrics report is about a year old, so its nice to have the update. For my detailed discussion of blogs and wikis in legal opinions, including lots of links on these topics, check this earlier post. Especially if the word “wikis” in the last sentence didn’t look familiar to you. Technorati Tags: law and technology, legal wikis, legal writing
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The Danger in Blogging about Writing
I’ve been blogging less than two months, and one of the things I am still getting used to is that the need to post quickly about current developments or about my comments on other blogs forces me to post without subjecting my writing to the same rigorous editing I apply to my writing in almost every other context. Which means I’m probably posting work that’s not up to my usual standards. Which, come to think of it, makes it very dangerous for me to keep blogging about writing skills, doesn’t it? Too late now. I’ve already posted twenty-one times on the subject of writing!
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The Last Law Professor without a Blog?
University of Colorado Law School Professor Paul Campos had a piece in our local paper yesterday morning in which he thought out loud about starting a blog. Confessing that he is “attracted to the prospect of being the last law professor in America without one,” he gives a tongue-in-cheek pro vs. con analysis about starting one. Among writers in general, and bloggers in particular, alcohol and narcissism go together like peanut butter and chocolate. Psychologists define narcissistic personality disorder as involving a grandiose sense of self-importance, and an overwhelming need for the constant attention and admiration. What better example of this can there be than bloggers obsessed with how many…
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Legal Antics Announces Legal Humor Law Blog Poll Winners
That was fast. Legal Antics announced the winners in its “Top 10 Funniest Law Blogs” contest that it announced less than two weeks ago. Sixteen blogs were nominated. In order to generate traffic to Legal Antics, I’m not going to disclose the winning blog here. (A link to the post disclosing the winners is below the teaser quote.) Here’s the teaser: [Winner], a web site that, upon information and belief, doesn’t even consider itself a blog, let alone a law blog, has won the “Funniest Law Blog” contest by a landslide. Go here for the complete results. By the way, all of the sixteen nominated blogs that weren’t already on…
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Return of “Underneath Their Robes” Blog?
Yesterday, the irreverent blog about the federal judiciary, “Underneath their Robes,” had its first new post in nearly nine months. The sole commenter takes the blogger, David Lat, to task, complaining that the self-congratulatory post referencing Lat’s article in the New York Times was an inappropriate way to end the blog’s 9-month silence. I’m surprised there are not more comments regarding the absence. Perhaps people aren’t bothering to check UTR any more. Could this new post mean it is coming back, or does it mean instead that we’ll get a new post only when Lat wants to plug one of his articles?
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Legal Blog Nominations
OK, this is just a little outside my normal subject matter. But since I figure most of my visitors are regular readers of legal blogs, I thought I should tip you all off to the fact that Legal Antics is soliciting nominations for its upcoming list of “Top 10 funniest law blogs.” Look for me to add a “Legal Humor” category to the blogroll in the next few days.
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Blogging about Judges Can Be Dangerous
Most lawyers like to know a little about any judge they are going to appear before in a case. If a judge is new to them, they ask around. What do other lawyers think? Does the judge normally permit aggressive discovery? Are her settlement conferences productive? Does he ask a lot of questions, or does he generally leave that to the other judges on the panel? So it’s no surprise to me that a blog to discuss judicial performance has arisen in at least one jurisdiction. Kevin O’Keefe at Lexblog links to a Florida blog to which lawyers posted their opinions regarding judicial performance. Now an ethics complaint against a…
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Bloggers Beware
Kevin O’Keefe at Lexblog posts a link to an article on twelve laws every blogger should know. According to the bullet points, the article covers such issues as a blogger’s duty to monitor comments, the applicability of journalism shield laws, ownership of user-developed content, and more. The article itself begins: Internet activity, and particular [sic] blogging, is being shaped and governed by state and federal laws. For US bloggers in particular, blogging has become a veritable land mine of potential legal issues, and the situation isn’t helped by the fact that the law in this area is constantly in flux. In this article we highlight twelve of the most important…