Sunday, April 05, 2009
Library of Congress Launches Blawg Archive

The Law Library of Congress this week unveiled a Web archive of legal blogs. The library began archiving selected legal blogs in 2007 and now has archives for more than 100 blogs covering a range of legal topics.

It appears to me that these archives are periodic snapshots of each blog rather than complete collections of the blog's posts. From this page, the collection can be browsed by subject, blog title and author name. The page also provides searching, but only of the blog's bibliographic information, not its full text.

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posted by Robert Ambrogi @ 8:49 PM, , links to this post

Wednesday, March 04, 2009
New Blog Tracks Bankruptcy Cases

The American Bankruptcy Institute and St. John's University School of Law have teamed up to launch the ABI Bankruptcy Case Blog. The blog is written by the student editors of the American Bankruptcy Institute Law Review at St. John's and promises to deliver in-depth research on cutting-edge bankruptcy issues. "Each entry is the product of extensive research and constitutes a succinct analysis of the issue and holding of the particular case, how that issue is situated in the larger discourse of bankruptcy law, adn why the case is important."

[Hat tip to Consumer Law & Policy Blog.]

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posted by Robert Ambrogi @ 11:22 AM, , links to this post


Mass. AG Launches into Social Media

The attorney general of Massachusetts, Martha Coakley, has launched a blog called At Issue & In Focus. The introductory post says:
This blog is designed to help residents to understand and participate in the work of their government. We will strive to address topics relevant to the broadest possible audience and will grow to include all the areas in which the work of this office affects Massachusetts residents, including consumers, families, businesses and others.
The AG's office now also has a Twitter feed and an official YouTube channel. A statement of the AG's Web communications policies says her use of Twitter "is intended as one-way communication" and the office will "not respond via Twitter to press inquiries, consumer complaints, or other constituent matters."

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posted by Robert Ambrogi @ 11:09 AM, , links to this post

Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Two Notable New Law Blogs

Two new legal blogs worth noting:

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posted by Robert Ambrogi @ 7:52 PM, , links to this post

Friday, January 23, 2009
Top Legal Blogs, Ranked by Traffic

In response to various competitions and rankings of the best legal blogs, the Avvo Blog has created an auto-updating list of the top 300 legal blogs, ordered by their traffic rankings as shown by Web information company Alexa. Because the list is regularly updated, the rankings vary. At the moment, this blog, LawSites, is ranked at #30 and a blog I co-author, Legal Blog Watch, is ranked #24. The two top-ranked blogs are Above the Law and The Volokh Conspiracy.

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posted by Robert Ambrogi @ 10:33 PM, , links to this post

Monday, January 19, 2009
New Blog Covers Mass. Injury Law

The Boston personal-injury law firm Breakstone, White & Gluck has launched Massachusetts Injury Lawyer Blog. The founding partners of this firm, Marc L. Breakstone and David W. White, are highly regarded trial lawyers in the state with an impressive record of verdicts and settlements (not to mention long-time friends of mine). White is a former president of the Massachusetts Bar Association. White writes that the blog will cover news and developments in the field and will discuss "meaty" issues of law, procedure and important cases.

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posted by Robert Ambrogi @ 1:53 PM, , links to this post

Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Defense Bar Launches Blog

The Defense Research Institute, the organization that is to the civil-defense bar what the American Association for Justice is to the plaintiffs' bar, recently launched a blog, For the Defense, as an adjunct to the organization's magazine of the same name.

I learned about the blog through a comment added to a post of mine at Legal Blog Watch about the DRI's recent annual meeting. The comment said that various DRI members would contribute to the blog, adding, "We anticipate a most robust dialogue on the diverse issues facing the legal profession now and in the future."

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posted by Robert Ambrogi @ 9:28 AM, , links to this post

Monday, October 20, 2008
An Intoxicating New Blawg

Every year, the U.S. Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau approves more than 100,000 labels for beer, wine and spirts, according to Robert C. Lehrman, founder of the law firm Lehrman Beverage Law in Oakton, Va. "In these approvals you can see the bursting efflorescence of the American (and the world) economy," he writes. In order to help distill (his pun, not mine) the best of these labels, he has started a surprisingly entertaining blog, bevlog.

Here, for example, you can find the label for Plumbers Crack Ale, which was not named for Joe. Other intriguing finds include Weed Lager (a smoky taste?), Recession Red table wine ("Times are tough. Toast the simple pleasures"), Illegal Cognac, and the one that makes my taste buds turn and run, Budweiser & Clamato. Check out this new blog -- just don't operate heavy machinery afterwards.

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posted by Robert Ambrogi @ 9:19 PM, , links to this post

Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Unique New Blog: Furniture Law

A newly launched blog is the first I've seen to focus on the topic of furniture law. The Womble Carlyle Furniture Law Blog comes from the Intellectual Property Group at the law firm of Womble Carlyle Sandridge & Rice in Winston-Salem, N.C. The blog will focus on IP and patent issues that affect the furniture industry, covering case filings, court decisions and legislative affairs. The blog's authors are Jack B. Hicks, a patent attorney in the firm's Greensboro office, and Jacob S. Wharton, an IP attorney in the Winston-Salem office. Upon first look, the blog appears solidly built and nicely finished.

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posted by Robert Ambrogi @ 8:50 PM, , links to this post

Tuesday, August 26, 2008
When Your Expert Has a Blog ...

Jurors do it. Litigants do it. But when happens when experts do it? The "it" in question is blogging, and the issue is what impact it may have on a trial. While I've seen several articles dealing with jurors blogging or litigants blogging, I had not seen any about experts blogging -- until now. I wrote a piece,
Expert Blogs: Loose Lips Sink ... Trials?, for the e-newsletter of IMS ExpertServices. The article surveys lawyers and experts on the dangers, or not, of expert witnesses with blogs.

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posted by Robert Ambrogi @ 4:58 PM, , links to this post

Monday, August 18, 2008
Catching Up: New Legal Blogs

Here are some of the new legal blogs that I have come across recently:

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posted by Robert Ambrogi @ 4:11 PM, , links to this post

Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Gerry Spence Launches a Blog

Legendary Wyoming trial lawyer Gerry Spence is now also on the road to becoming a legendary blogger. Earlier this month, he launched Gerry Spence's Blog, explaining in an introductory post that he has done a "miserably inadequate" job of using the Internet to share his thoughts and lessons. "I have learned things about our broken judicial system I want to expose to you," he writes. "I have ideas about our condition in this slave-hold under which many decent Americans suffer."

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posted by Robert Ambrogi @ 9:31 PM, , links to this post

Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Slate Launches Legal Blog

The online magazine Slate launched a legal blog this week, Convictions, that will provide commentary from a range of legal professionals, including Slate's Jurisprudence columnists Dahlia Lithwick and Emily Bazelon as well as practitioners and law professors from across the country. "By launching a law blog, we're able to post immediate reactions to legal cases and headlines, providing an accessible source for legal discourse from a wide range of qualified experts," Jacob Weisberg, Slate's editor, said in announcing the blog.

Phillip Carter, a lawyer with McKenna Long & Aldridge in New York City and a regular Slate contributor on legal and military affairs, will serve as editor of the blog. Others on tap to contribute include: David Barron, Harvard law professor and former attorney-advisor in the Clinton Administration; Rosa Brooks, Georgetown law professor and Los Angeles Times columnist; Jack Balkin, Yale law professor and noted constitutional scholar; Diane Amann, professor at University of California at Berkeley School of Law; Doug Kmiec, Pepperdine University law professor and former assistant attorney general in the George H.W. Bush administration; Walter Dellinger, former acting U.S. solicitor general and Duke law professor; U.S. District Judge Nancy Gertner, who sits in Boston, Mass.; Eric Posner, University of Chicago law professor; Richard Ford, Stanford law professor; and Kenji Yoshino, Yale law professor.

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posted by Robert Ambrogi @ 6:21 PM, , links to this post

Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Lawyers as Bloggers as Writers

Thanks to Laura Orr at Oregon Legal Research for including this blog in a pair of thoughtful posts on the art and practice of blogging for lawyers: Blogging for Lawyers and Blawgers as (real) Writers. In the first post, she covers the fundamentals of getting started in blogging. In the second, she considers the discipline and persistence that go into keeping a blog interesting. The blogs she lists are among the ones I regularly read and I join her in commending them to you.

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posted by Robert Ambrogi @ 3:23 PM, , links to this post

Thursday, January 17, 2008
New Blog Deals With Business that 'Divorce'

A new blog focuses on break-ups between businesses, particularly in New York. Called New York Business Divorce, it is written by Peter A. Mahler, a partner in the Manhattan office of the firm Farrell Fritz. The blog provides information for lawyers and others on dissolution and other disputes among owners of corporations, LLCs and partnerships.

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posted by Robert Ambrogi @ 8:36 PM, , links to this post

Monday, November 19, 2007
Whistleblower Protection Blog

Earlier today at Legal Blog Watch, I wrote about yesterday's joint investigative report by 60 Minutes and The Washington Post revealing the injustice to hundreds of defendants who remain in prison based at least in part on a discredited FBI forensic tool known as comparative bullet-lead analysis. As the Washington Post piece mentions, two affiliated organizations played central roles in bringing this injustice to light, the Forensic Justice Project and the National Whistleblower Center. In looking at the latter organization's site, I became aware of its excellent blog, the Whistleblower Protection Blog, which has much more detail on its bullet-lead investigation and the FOIA cases it brought against the FBI, as well as useful posts on legal issues relating to whisteblowers.

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posted by Robert Ambrogi @ 4:01 PM, , links to this post

Saturday, July 21, 2007
New Blog: 'Today in Legal History'

FindLaw has teamed with National Public Radio's Justice Talking program to launch the blog Today in Legal History. As the name suggests, each day the blog highlights a historical event related to law or government. The blog appears on both FindLaw and on JusticeLearning, a Web site produced by Justice Talking together with The New York Times Learning Network.

July 21, for example, was the fifth anniversary of WorldCom's bankruptcy filing, the largest in U.S. history. July 20 was the date in 1990 that a federal appeals court overturned Oliver North's Iran-Contra-related felony convictions.

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posted by Robert Ambrogi @ 4:31 PM, , links to this post

Monday, July 16, 2007
Who Was the First Legal Blogger?

I ask -- and answer -- this question in a post today at Legal Blog Watch. I'd love to hear from anyone who thinks I might have it wrong.

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posted by Robert Ambrogi @ 8:57 PM, , links to this post

Thursday, April 12, 2007
Iowa Law Firm Launches IP Blog

The Des Moine, Iowa, intellectual property firm McKee, Voorhees & Sease today announced the launch of its blog, Filewrapper.com, devoted to legal issues pertaining to patents, trademarks, copyrights, trade secrets and IP litigation.

The firm has done something smart in preparing for the launch: It spent some six months developing and posting to the blog before taking it public. As a result, the blog launches with a substantial archive of postings and lawyers well-acquainted with the routine of regularly posting.

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posted by Robert Ambrogi @ 6:05 PM, , links to this post

Saturday, March 10, 2007
New Blog on Law Practice Management

OK, not brand new -- looks like it started in October, but I just discovered this blog, Law People, which describes itself as covering "better law practice through better people management." The author is Ronda Muir, a lawyer and consultant at the New Jersey consulting firm Robin Rolfe Resources, where she focuses on law firm and law department organizational development and dynamics.

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posted by Robert Ambrogi @ 2:20 PM, , links to this post