Thursday, May 1, 2008

Dissed Again - Aren't Any Personal Injury Blogs Good?

Personal injury blogs have once again been ignored. This time it comes from the new web directory, Alltop. Constructed by web impresario Guy Kawaskaki, it's law page is chock full of great law blogs, some mainstream and some in small niches. My quick count shows 105 of them, and it has the potential to be a great resource for people to see who is writing about what in a single glance.

But not a single blog deals with personal injury law as its main subject. Now you would think that with all the yelling and screaming about tort "reform," jury verdicts, federal preemption, punitive damages and related subjects, that one or two blogs that devote themselves to the subject would be on the list. But they aren't.

Have we seen this before? Yup. (See: Vote For Me In Blawg 100!! (Oh Wait, You Can't))

So, in the event that the Alltop law page gets updated, here's a tip to Guy for a few blogs on the subject to consider:

• Bill Childs (TortsProf)
• John Day (Day on Torts)
• Beck/Herrmann on defending BigDrug and BigDevice (Drug and Device Law)
• Bill Marler on food poisoning (Marler Blog)
• Byron Stier and Howard Erichson (Mass Tort Litigation Blog)
• Perlmutter & Schuelke, publishing weekly personal injury round-ups chock full of links to good personal injury blogs
• TortDeform on civil justice defense
  

For goodness sakes, pick one or two from the list, or use some of the many other fine ones that I haven't mentioned. But ignoring an entire field of the law seems to be a mistake if the intent is to aggregate law blogs.

See also:

• Blawgs Get Kawasakied (Blawg Review)
• Blawg Stuff, How To Keep Up (Simple Justice)
• Finding Good Blogs (Deliberations)
• Law Alltop Launches (The Inspired Solo)
  

Labels: Blogging

posted by Eric Turkewitz  # Permanent Link

Comments:

From what I can tell, the blogs are basically based on ABA Top Blawgs. Which is silly because if the resource is intended to help the public find legal news, then blogs like those you listed, as well as various employment law, family law and trust/estate blogs. Why anyone in the general public would want to read MyShingle is beyond me.

Also, I have to be honest - I'm not sure why the site is receiving such raves. It's very similar to a site called the Daily Whirl that aggregated the content of the handful of law blogs that existed back then and listed the top few posts (circa 2002/2003). It was a useful tool, so I see the usefulness of Alltop - but it's not an original concept. That's why I haven't posted about it.

# posted by  Carolyn Elefant : May 02, 2008 9:51 AM

 

Well, it's certainly nice that you can just place your cursor over a post and read the lede. That's a nice one stop alternative to an RSS feed for bloggers, and a nice way to hunt down and preview new stuff you might not have noticed before. I agree with you that it probably doesn't do much for the general public.

So I like the idea and format for me. But the Rodney Dangerfield think is a different matter.

# posted by  Eric Turkewitz : May 02, 2008 10:01 AM

 

Hey Turk, has it not occurred to you yet that maybe, just maybe, they keep dissing the PI blogs because they just don't make the cut? I mean, it's not like they would do that to the criminal law blogs, that are beloved by all, right?

# posted by  Anonymous : May 02, 2008 12:54 PM

 

All bow before the mighty crim law blogs; I see about 10 on the page.

You guys always getall those 4th and 5th Amendment cases that create buzz, get to shoot your mouths off because you don't have the burden of proof, and get to vilify "the man."

Makes for good readin'.

# posted by  Eric Turkewitz : May 02, 2008 1:04 PM

 

Hey, Eric - thanks for the link. I think you've got a valid point here. I'm not sure it is based on the ABA list, as Carolyn stated, though. Twitter tweets this past week on the reveal of law.alltop showed that at least a few lawyers (individual bloggers, I mean) had something to do with the list of blogs included.

Regardless, it's a valid point. There are lots of excellent PI blogs out there, yours included. I do think Alltop is pretty awesome, but anything created by human hands/brains will be inherently flawed, right?

# posted by  Sheryl Sisk Schelin : May 03, 2008 10:18 AM

 

That's a pretty annoying site!

I'm not just saying that because court-o-rama ain't on it, either!

That weird floating bar gets in the way, the popupesque mouseover boxes (yeah there's probably a better word for those but I don't know it) are out of control, and there appears to be no rhyme nor any reason to the way titles are listed.

Maybe you are on it and you just can't find yourself.

# posted by  Anne : May 03, 2008 9:22 PM

 

Thanks for your kind words, Eric.

# posted by  John Day : May 05, 2008 11:42 AM

 

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