I hate doing this. But the anonymous Editor of Blawg Review, pictured at right, is asking those of us that have done reviews in the past to nominate the top reviews of the past year. I've now done three of them -- based on the NYC Marathon (2007), Thanksgiving with Arlo Guthrie (2008), and The Bogeyman at Halloween (this year) -- but asking someone to pick favorites from the past year is like asking you to pick 5 people to come to a party when you have 25 on your list. Yuck.

Anyway, this is what I think makes for a good review, and the way I make my selections:

1. Does the BR make me want to click on a link? If there is a long description of the linked post I don't have to click. But a tease makes me want to click, along the lines of Above the Law's Non-Sequiturs and Overlawyered's roundups.

The more times a BR sends me away to another blog, the higher marks it gets. Sending you away from its website is what made Google famous.

2. Does the review have a story? Stories make for fun and easy reading. I make opening statements that way as it helps the jury to keep pace with what is going on, and that is also why I like seeing reviews around a story.

3. Does the post have a long intro? I hate intros. Like jurors at a trial's opening, I will never be more attentive than when the first words spill forth. Don't lose me at hello.

4. Does the post have a legal theme? If it does, it gets generally negative marks from me, because it forces the writer to jam otherwise interesting posts into artificial categories. The themes I used were all non-legal; they were social gatherings where the conversation flows this way and that and can therefore accommodate any topic without odd segues and contortions.

Without further ado, the best of the year from my wholly subjective viewpoint:

• Blawg Review #198 at the East Central Illinois Criminal Law and DUI Weblog, based on the seven deadly sins. The writing made me want to click on link after link;

• Blawg Review #220 at Overlawyered. Did I say I liked stories? Stupid rule. No splashy theme, and little distraction. Walter Olson and Ted Frank (who subsequently became my lawyer) just wrote in a style that made you want to click on links;

• Blawg Review #223, where Scott Greenfield's sphincter was firmly in control. Since he hates doing these reviews, and was pinched to do it on a day's notice, it came out as a delightfully curmudgeonly rant. It's tough to beat a well-written rant;

• Blawg Review #233 at Popehat revolving around Joshua Norton I, Emperor of the United States of America and Protector of Mexico. Did I say I hate long intros? Stupid rule. They had me at Welcome. Great story and I found myself not only clicking links, but wasting time on Wikipedia afterwards;

Honorable mentions to:

• Blawg Review #203, with drunken debauchery by Geeklawyer. If they were giving out prizes for style he would win it hands down;

• Blawg Review #204, with Elie Mystel slaughtering sacred cows at Above the Law would have made the cut. But they just won one of those ABA Blawg 100 popularity contests, and one win is enough;

• Blawg Review #205A, George Wallace's April Fool's Day appendix at A Fool in the Forest, because you know, I have a thing for April Fool's Day;

• Blawg Review #209 by John Hochfelder at his New York Injury Cases Blog. If there was a law blogger Rookie of the Year award, it would go here. Wait, I'm a law blogger and I can make up an award just like anyone else. Here John, it's yours. (Sorry, no badge.) His review was dedicated to his father, a marine, and the posts followed his life.
  

• Blawg Review #238 by Joel "A Jew With A Gun" Rosenberg at WindyPundit. He celebrated International Tolerance Day. And any review that opens with Tom Lehrer's National Brotherhood Week is bound to be a winner. Or at least get honorable mention.

• Blawg Review #241 was hosted by Colin Samuels on Pearl Harbor Day at Infamy and Praise. Saumels wins this award every damn year, so there is no way I'm going to vote for him. You just gotta spread the wealth around a bit.

OK, there you have it. I posted my utterly and completely subjective favorites based on rules I made up and then ignored, and now everyone that wasn't mentioned hates me. Thanks, Ed.

Labels: Blawg Review

I'm grateful to the many people who offered up their flattering comments and links regarding this week's Halloween themed Blawg Review, starring The Bogeyman. Some came in the comments area, some came in by Twitter and some on blogs:

• If you missed @turkewitz's Halloween themed Blawg Review--go read it now. It is beyond clever (Rita Handrich @ The Jury Expert)
  

• a super edition of Halloween Blawg Review (Kevin Underhill @ Lowering The Bar)

• Eric Turkewitz never fails. But here he 'frightens' (Susan Cartier Liebel @ SoloPracticeUniversity)

• As always with the Turk, its top shelf (Kevin O'Keefe at Real Lawyers Have Blogs)

• Eric Turkewitz does a bang-up job on a spooky Blawg Review #236 over at his New York Personal Injury Law Blog. Enjoy. (Ken @ Popehat)

• @turkewitz & a scary Blawg Review #236 -- murder, mayhem & protecting his kids (Doug Keene @ KeeneTrial)

• Expectations were high; he exceeded them (Anne Reed @ Deliberations) Retweeted by: Erik Magraken; Scott Greenfield; Christopher Hill; CharonQC;

• Eric Turkewitz writes a 'mean' Blawg Review ... and I mean that in the Cowboy Western 'mean an ornery' sense ... manages to cover a wide range of blogs in a highly readable way ... [more @ CharonQC]

• Eric Turkewitz' Halloween-themed Blawg Review #236, hosted at his New York Personal Injury Law Blog, was a real treat ... Turkewitz is a perennial contender for Blawg Review of the Year honors. If this one doesn't put him at the top of voters' lists this year, there must be some trick. (Colin Samuels @ Infamy and Praise, who has won all four of the Blawg Review of the Year awards, so yes, there must be some trick)
  

As well as other links provided by: Above the Law; Point of Law; Blawg Review; montserratlj; Ron Coleman

If others come in, I'll tack them on.

Labels: Blawg Review

(For centuries a wanderer has traveled about during Halloween week to see what lawyers are discussing on their blogs, and presented it in Blawg Review.)

The Bogeyman was pissed. And when The Bogeyman gets pissed, it's probably wise to listen.

"Law bloggers are trying to steal my thunder," he hissed, "It used to be that I had dibs on scaring the bejesus out of people. Now only 40% believe that my coterie of demons inhabits this earth. And I blame the lawyers. What are you guys trying to do to me?"

So as I stepped from my home to trick-or-treat with Little Man and Sweet Pea, he said "I'm coming along to show you what I mean." Oh, great.

We stopped at the house of Canadian law professor Sharon Sutherland who told us, while she tossed twizzlers into my kids' bags and blasted Thriller into the street, that there were more than 200 mentions of zombies in case law over the last 50 years, with most occurring in the last decade.

"See what I mean?" said The Bogeyman, "I'm supposed to control all the zombies. I mean, I can still invade a few brains to alert the world to real Zombies, and rattle a few people on the street, but too many lawyers are grabbing my turf."

"I mean, really, Zombie law firms! Isn't society overusing my minions?

He was on a roll while my kids were chattering happily, looking to score some Nerds. Maybe Scott Greenfield could get the kids sugar-zonked, while transporting me somewhere pleasant away from zombies. But Greenfield was spooked. He saw a prosecutor, once imbued with power, who was fired and then blogged about it. And now he'd vanished into the ethers, leaving behind his unpleasant ghost.

My kids were unimpressed with this tale, despite the Ghostbusters soundtrack playing in the background. They wanted gore. And so did The Bogeyman.

So we stopped at Kevin Underhill's, because he had a fish knifed into his door, and this, oddly enough, got my kids excited. Was this some Godfatherish death warning to Halloween tricksters, I wondered? And what happened to the fish killer asked the kids? My kids scored some gummy fish and scampered away.

Animals are fun, said Little Man, but can we find some live ones next time? Well, we could always find people humiliating their pets. "Fun!" said the son. "There oughta be a law," groused The Bogeyman as his eyes started to glow.

Next door was sweet, old Mother Jones; perhaps she could spook the kids? But Mother was too busy laughing while nibbling on a pop tort. It seems that the tort reformin', lawsuit hatin' US Chamber of Commerce had been punked when a group parodied them. And they not only threatened a suit of their own but were actually dumb enough to start one. My daughter looked up and asked, "Is this where the phrase 'good for thee but not for me' comes from?" Smart kid. Mother didn't spook, but she did spoil, with a fistful of vegan candy. My kids pretended not to notice. They're good that way.

Then they raced down the street to the little niche that Mark Herrmann and Jim Beck share. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Together they looked down at my happy little munchkins: "If you ever grow up to be drug company executives," they thundered in unison, "Stay out of West Virginia! For the learned intermediary doctrine won't apply!" I'd never seen my kids' eyes grow so wide. I don't know if it was fear or bewilderment, but they scampered away quickly, without even realizing the candy wrappers were completely filled with warning labels.

The little 'uns had no interest in discussions of drug company law, nor hypocritical faux "reformers," they wanted monsters, and not the monsters that inhabit law schools. So we went in search of something ...monstery? The Bogeyman was salivating. Finally.

While the kids were distracted chewing on Twizzlers, I told The Bogeyman about Monster Energy Drink and their chuckleheaded lawyering that managed to pull two bone-headed moves, trying to crush the free speech of a website that gave them a negative review, and trying to stop a small Vermont brewery from making Vermonster Beer.

See? Monsters! The Bogeyman still wasn't impressed -- and if you've ever tried to impress The Bogeyman you'll understand how difficult this task is -- so we went next door to IP guru Ron Coleman.

"The End Days are here," he said cryptically while Bad Moon Rising poured forth, and I saw The Bogeyman start to smile, making my stomach turn. Coleman explained to me, while tossing M&Ms at my kids, that "abusive DMCA takedown notices sent by copyright owners" will alter Google for the worse. "It's over." Dennis Kennedy, who snuck up behind us in the doorway with is own little troop, says he thinks that Google's best days are behind it as the next generation of search arrives. As we walked away, Mr. B said that my neighbors had awfully skewed perspectives on what End Days really means.

And then came a cheery call to us from Eoin O'Dell, temporarily in the US, who was researching the law of haunted houses and whether there was a duty to disclose a haunting in a house sale. And if you don't believe me, you can check his citation to a New York appellate court. But the only appeal for the children were the brightly colored sucking candies she brought with her from overseas.

The Bogeyman told me he was getting annoyed, but saw promise as we hit the walkway to Bruce Carton's place. Hanging from a tree was an effigy with all manner of injuries. He's wearing a Mets jersey, representing a season to forget. As we rang the doorbell, my son questioned me on a conundrum: Yankees or Phillies? As Mets fans we hate both. But when Carton gets an earful of our discussion, he can't wait to tell the story of the gorgeous tall buxom blonde -- in desperate need of two World Series tickets and what she will do to get them. Baseball, I tell my kids, is all about scoring, and I get them the hell out of the house.

But the talk of sex has caught the happy ear of next door neighbor Kashmir Hill, with gravestones sticking up from her front lawn. She pointed toward one of them, with the name of the 66 year-old assistant district of attorney caught with the 18 year-old stripper. Caught, she adds, in a graveyard. Douglas Keene, visiting with Hill, chipped in with more while the kids happily tangled themselves up in the spider webby stuff that Hill hung from the trees: Keene whispered that it was now possible to look at someone's Facebook account and determine their sexual orientation. The Bogeyman was going apoplectic. "Give me real villains," he snarled. His left ear started to smoke.

"And if you can't make me sick, at least try to amuse me." So I showed him Adrian Dayton's idea of a funny Halloween costume, focusing on social media. And Ann Althouse with her werewolf. "You humans can't even do humor right, though the CEO that dressed in six different Halloween costumes for his deposition was at least a good effort," said The Bogeyman. "As was the guy who came to see the Utah Attorney General dressed in full SWAT gear. But you're mostly pathetic. In some places, it could even be a felony to wear a Halloween mask. If you want costumes, look at this commercial one of my people did, though you should tell your more cowardly readers not to blast the volume if they're sneaking a peak at work."

When we walked up to the home of Jeralyn Merritt, she was outside talking about abuse with Ken from Popehat. Jeralyn pushed a deep dish of mini-chocolates toward my kids without breaking stride in the story she was telling of the six Gitmo Uighurs that had finally been freed and finally found a home, though it wasn't their own. And Ken was talking about abuse elsewhere: when a southwestern hotelier demanded that his Spanish-speaking employees cease and desist their native language because he feared they are secretly mocking him behind his back. Maybe he deserved to be mocked?

My kids strolled into the house, and The Bogeyman pulled me aside. You call this Halloween? Where are the real goods? With my kids now safely out of sight, I took him around the corner...

We found Howard Wasserman at the next house, with its glowing jack-o-laterns out front and Black Magic Woman filling the air. He was starting a Suicide Pool, watching as "Birther" lawyer and nut job (and dentist!) Orly Taitz continued down a path that has already had her sanctioned and will likely to cost her her license when done. "That's not real death," growled The Bogeyman.

OK, I told him, I'll give you a taste of the real deal.

Anne Reed greeted us ever so quietly where she sat on her front porch with a simple un-carved pumpkin. And she told us of the murder trial of a 4 year old girl, and the artwork created by a juror. She was sitting with Tom Kirkendall who told of the tragic car accident death of Houston trial lawyer John O'Quinn. Ashby Jones, who had just joined them, shared the story of real life monster Radovan Karadzic, the Serb accused of war crimes in Bosnia, whose war crimes trial was about to start at The Hague.

The four of them had an open laptop, and were looking at the site of Chicago Now. I think we found some of your friends living here, I whispered to The Bogeyman. The tatooed faces in these mug shots seem to scream out that evil was here.

The Bogeyman smiled and quieted down as he saw the fruits of some of his labors. He drifted off aways.

But Kevin Underhill had left his home to follow me, and now reappeared. He wanted to tell me, as if to taunt The Bogeyman back into my life, that he was most unimpressed. Those tats can be creatively covered up...just look what this guy is planning to do with his."

With The Bogeyman's blood thirst hopefully sated, despite Underhill's efforts, I scooped up my kids and headed to the home of John Hochfelder. He had a roaring fire in a pit on the front patio to break the late October chill, and Phantom of the Opera played quietly in the background. The parents drank wine and beer as the kids roasted marsh mellows into a goopy mess that were then decorated with candies in a gross-out contest. While Hochfelder served the booze, he also talked to us about the problem a certain Halloween witch had when she got drunk and was then hit by two cars, one of which was the responding police.

Gideon -- who had been talking to others about his beliefs on good and evil and the differences between those in the dock and those sitting in justice -- shifted gears to join the drunk driving discussion. He noted a little dissent where Chief Justice Roberts argued that anytime police receive an anonymous tip that someone is driving drunk they should be able to pull them over and conduct an investigatory stop.

But stories of drunks don't always have to end with death and destruction, and Jonathan Turley hoisted a tankard of suds to the cop that pulled a gun on a character in a haunted house. Hey, he said, no one got hurt. The Bogeyman, standing under a tree in the distance, started to glow again as his nostrils flared out almost to his ears.

Siouxsielaw sat with us by the fire -- having just moved into the neighborhood as the planet's first Gothic law blogger. Talk about your niche areas. But she wanted to return to Hochfelder's witch case. It seems that the Supreme Court of Massachusetts has allowed a Halloween costume to be admissible in a sex discrimination lawsuit. Siouxsie, by the way, also has a Halloween waiver and has a trick or tort posting and a motto that "Good Lawyers Wear Black?" Is this blogger a keeper? Me thinks so, I told the crowd.

As the night wore down and I scooped up the kids to leave, I collared Bill Childs and thanked him for doing a round-up of the personal injury discussions of the past week, because I surely didn't have the time to do so here. When he said that newcomers to this site really wouldn't get a true taste of my blog by reading my account of this evening, I reminded him that they could simply go to the "greatest hits" page that I have.

And when Blawg Review #237 hits Chritsian Metcalfe's property law blog next week, hopefully The Bogeyman will stay home.

Labels: Blawg Review

Well, I'm hosting Blawg Review again, this coming Monday. So the floor is now open for suggestions on what to include in this weekly round-up of the legal blogosphere that travels from one blog to another on a week-to-week basis.

As with my 2007 marathon-themed Blawg Review (a long-running hit) and my 2008 Thanksgiving Blawg Review (which I loved writing but which some thought was a turkey), I will not be focusing on personal injury law. Because this is, after all, a round-up of posts from around the legal spectrum, not just my itty, bitty niche.

I'm still scratching my head for how to handle this particular review and what theme to use, so feel free to give me ideas. But you should note that the prior sentence was an outright lie and that I've already decided on a theme. It's my blog, and I'm allowed to do that kind of thing. But send me the tip anyway in case I'm afflicted with the sudden onset of Alzheimers.

To be considered for inclusion you can send an email to Post@BlawgReview.com or go to the Blawg Review site (and read the guidelines) and use the template. Or you can hope that I find your blog on my own as I stumble my way across the interwebs.

Blog post submissions (feel free to submit from any blog, including your own) should be:

1. Interesting to read; and
2. Free of self-promotion and self-aggrandizement. If your post has a suggestion to call you (If you too have driven a car into a pool...) then save yourself the cost of the email as well as the potential humiliation.

Unfortunately, I'm following on the heels of some great reads:

Blawg Review #235 at Counsel to Counsel, focused on posts that dealt with how the practice of law has changed with the Great Recession (and a subject I hit back in August with 10 Tips for Laid Off Lawyers);

Blawg Review #234 at Settle it Now, focusing on a "200 year present" and conflict resolution that is so chock full of links and information it scares the hell out of me as I think about my own;

Blawg Review #233 at Popehat with its tribute to Joshua Norton I, Emperor of the United States of America and Protector of Mexico. What? You've never heard of him? Neither had I, but I now consider myself at expert as the review wove in the lessons of our revered 19th century emperor and the modern lessons he brought;

Blawg Review #232 at Solo Practice University, with its tribute to -- what else? -- teaching;

Blawg Review #231 at Legally Unbound with its focus on Sin City. And lawyers have plenty of issues when it comes to sin;

Blawg Review #230 at Unsilent Partners, which comes at us from two long time blogs (Charon QC and Infamy or Praise) on two continents with its takes on war and peace; and

Blawg Review #229 at Blawgletter with its homage to John Harvard. Yes, that Harvard.

I am so dead. So very, very dead.

Labels: Blawg Review

Blawg Review, that weekly round-up of the legal blogs that travels from site to site, celebrates its 200th edition this week. And with that, we tip our caps to two people:

First, there is Ed., the anonymous Editor of the review who runs the show, who did Blawg Review #200, who has also done ten ...count 'em ten ...of those reviews. Without Ed., there would be no Blawg Review. And if someone else were doing the organizing, you just know it wouldn't be nearly as good. That's Ed. to the right.

And then there is Colin Samuels, winner of the 2008 Blawg Review of the Year at Infamy or Praise with #189, based on the the Rime of the Ancient Mariner. (My nominations are here.)

Of course, Samuels also won in 2005, based on Dante's Divine Comedy:Inferno. And he won in 2006 based on The Divine Comedy: Purgatorio. And he won in 2007 based on The Divine Comedy: Paradiso. I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm starting to see a pattern.

Ron Coleman's #191 at Liklihood of Confusion took second place with a Chanukah theme. And there was a tie for third between Rush Nigut's Blawg Review #147 based on the Register's Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa, and David Gulbransen's Blawg Review #182, a special bar exam edition. My Thanksgiving themed review with Arlo Guthrie, on the other hand, was apparently a real turkey.

How can Samuels be stopped in 2009? We're gonna need The Bogeyman to get involved just to give someone else a chance.

Labels: Blawg Review

While the 2008 web awards in so many categories are now history, there is one left: 2008 Blawg Review of the Year. A full list of the reviews from last year is available at that link, with a snippet of information on each to jog the memory.

For those who love Blawg Review, that weekly round-up of the week's legal blogging, there are only 4 days left to nominate a review for best of the year for 2008. Nominations will be accepted until 11:59 PM on January 31st.

Who can nominate? According to the anonymous editor of the review, who is closely keeping tabs on the ballots:

Every blog that has ever hosted Blawg Review, or is scheduled to host an upcoming issue of Blawg Review, is entitled to post its nominations of as many of the qualified issues of Blawg Review (other than one's own) as it wishes to acknowledge for consideration for recognition as Blawg Review of the Year 2008.

I posted my own list of the 11 best reviews of the year, nominating three of them for the award, based on the manner in which stories were told, since framing a story properly is a healthy part of what lawyers do.

So if you've done a review or plan to do one, the time is running out to put up your nominations. But wait, there's more! If you nominate by midnight tonight, the editor will waive the shipping and handling of the nominations, and quite possibly, toss in a pocket fisherman, set of Ginsu knives and salad spinner.

Labels: Blawg Review

The anonymous Editor of Blawg Review has once again foisted upon those that have written a Blawg Review (or are currently signed up to write one) the miserable job of picking the "best" of the year.

The problem, of course, is that picking the "best" is highly subjective. There's no scale to weigh these things. And yet, someone must sit on this jury.

And so, since I'm now a juror, I'm going to pick based on who I think the best storytellers are. And that's because, as attorneys, what we do is tell stories to present our client's side of how something occurred. If a juror's eyes glaze over in boredom then being right won't help you. And woe unto the lawyer that self-promotes. Do either jurors or readers want to hear self-promotional stuff?

To keep the attention of jurors (or Blawg Review readers), I want to put them in the action. There are no warm-up comments, thank yous, explanations, or other time-wasting crap. Every opening argument I've ever given starts exactly the same way: "Today we turn to the clock back to..." and off we go into the middle of the story where I like to start. It's all about the story. Jurors need to be interested in what's going on. And so do review readers.

Mere lists of facts can be boring. I don't generally use them unless I have to.

It can also be hard to shoehorn posts into specific legal topics for a Blawg Review, which many try to do to fit the theme of their blogs. It's a trick that is tough to pull off. But tell a good story, and leave yourself open to any facts (good blog posts) that you see, and you've opened the review up to range near and far on anything of interest.

In fact, when I did my reviews based on the NYC Marathon and Thanksgiving with Arlo Guthrie, storytelling was the technique I used. I kept away from legal themes and I focused on social gatherings, where anyone can talk about anything. I didn't spend any time with introductory comments. Chuck a little fantasy into the mix of putting people at your side during a race or a dinner, and you can go anywhere with the story so long as you grab their attention and hold it. And I tried, as much as possible, to do it in such a fashion that readers would want to click the links and be sent away from my review. Because that, after all, is the idea behind these weekly reviews.

And so, without further ado, I nominate these three storytellers for Blawg Review of the Year, followed by eight Honorable Mentions:

• Rush Nigut of Rush on Business took us during Blawg Review # 147 on the annual Register's Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa. He was kind enough to put bloggers right into the middle of the race. Without Rush, I never would have learned about Mr. Pork Chop.

• Mistress Ruthie hosted Blawg Review #160 at Ruthie's Law, captivating this juror not with the story, but with the persona of the storyteller. She (?) doesn't waste time with an introduction explaining what she is doing. She just does it. And you get it. And you merrily click on links and come back for more amusement. The law doesn't feel like work.

• Greg May at the California Blog of Appeal hosted Blawg Review #155 dedicated to bad poetry and stress. Instead of one long story, he has lots of little ones. Sometimes in verse. Since the way he told the stories made me want to click on the links, he gets one of my nominations.

Having done that, I also need to give an Honorable Mention to the following:

Charon QC at Blawg Review #141, set the bar high at the start of the year with a review that puts many others to shame. Even if you never clicked a link, the review was (and is) worth reading for the wordsmithing alone.

Marc Randazza at the Legal Satyrcion did a brilliant job on Blawg Review #190 Bill of Rights Day. Did I say previously that "mere lists" can be boring? Or sticking to legal themes often doesn't work? Well the Bill of Rights is the greatest of all Top Ten Lists, and Randazza picked a legal theme for sure, and proved me wrong on both counts on how to put a review together. Easily one of the ten best of the year.

Mediator Victoria Pynchon at The IP ADR Blog picked virginity as a theme for Blawg Review #171. Now how bold was that? She also happened to have done what appears to be the longest review of the year, chock full of so many links it boggles the mind as to how long she must have worked on it.

I liked Joshua Fruchter's Blawg Review #187 on Evolution Day at his site LawyerCasting. Since the law, and the practice of law, is constantly evolving, it is a theme that lends itself to most anything the writer wants, and in this case he successfully integrated his theme with his practice area. And that is a tough trick to pull off.

It's worth noting that some had difficulty sticking with the themes they picked, and they wisely abandoned them rather than try to force the issue. George Wallace at Declarations and Exclusions went with a pirate theme at Blawg Review #153, before admitting (aaargh) "We have no posts to link actually involving pirates, in the traditional non-intellectual property sense, but we can present a selection of items dealing with more shorebound offenses." And off he went for a great review, albeit having little to do with piracy.

Perennial Blawg Review of the Year winner Colin Samuels, at Infamy and Praise put up a daring Blawg Review #189 with the Rime of the Ancient Mariner theme. While picking one of the great stories of literature to tell, he ran into problems when he realized he couldn't quite sustain the literary element with a journey through the law. (Of course, it didn't stop him from doing an exceptional and captivating review.) He wrote:

The Mariner chose a life at sea and experienced all that it offered -- the mundane and the extraordinary, the routine and the exceptional, the company of crewmates and the boatload of corpses. Similarly, our experiences with the law mix the usual with the unusual and....

Forget it. I'm reaching; you know I'm reaching. Let's end this charade, shall we? Look, I'll level with you... I need a section in this Blawg Review where I can put a number of excellent posts concerning substantive legal issues. I'm going to do it here and I'd appreciate it if you'd just nod and go with it, OK? Thanks.

David Gulbransen at Preaching to the Perverted did Blawg Review #182 in a very imaginative exam format, which perfectly suited the fact that he had just taken a blizzard of them.

Anita Campbell at Small Business Trends went with a straightforward list for her Blawg Review #177. And if you are going to go with a list, this is certainly the way to do it. Nice and clean. David Giacalone of f/k/a, who famously wrote that he often finds "themed Blawg Reviews to be annoying, strained and distracting" probably loved it.

Finally: To those nominated and those honorably mentioned, I've tried to find your law firm web site in addition to your blog to give you a little Google juice, because you earned it. I missed some, but if you send me the link, I'll add it in. Email: blog [at] TurkewitzLaw [dot] com

Labels: Blawg Review

The anonymous Editor of Blawg Review is once again setting up the selection of Blawg Review of the Year as a contest.

Since I did a Thanksgiving-themed Blawg Review (#188), with a little extra help from Arlo Guthrie on guitar, I have a vested interest in who wins.

Ed. has thankfully provided a short thumbnail sketch of each review, so if you are one of the people allowed to vote (see The Rules below) you will not be left scratching your noodle trying to remember which one was which.

Here are the rules, which Ed. has nicely labeled "The Rules," so we easily follow along...

The Rules
Any of the issues of Blawg Review #141 to #191, inclusive, is qualified to be nominated for Blawg Review of the Year 2008.

Every blog that has ever hosted Blawg Review, or is scheduled to host an upcoming issue of Blawg Review, is entitled to post its nominations of as many of the qualified issues of Blawg Review (other than one's own) as it wishes to acknowledge for consideration for recognition as Blawg Review of the Year 2008.

Such nomination posts shall be calculated as votes for Blawg Review of the Year only if the nominating blogger advises the Editor of Blawg Review by email of a link to such nominations.

After 11:59 PM, GMT, on January 31, 2009, the Editor of Blawg Review shall determine the Blawg Review of the Year that has earned the most qualified nominations recorded in posts of which the Editor has been duly notified by email before that time.

Editor reserves the right to amend these rules as may be necessary for the sake of clarity and fairness.

If you haven't done a Blawg Review, I would encourage it. If you're like me, it a great way to have fun. Of course, if you're like Greenfield, it can be a misery, which is to say, your mileage may vary.

One last thing: Unlike the ABA contest on the 100 Best Blawgs, in this one you can't stuff the ballot box, as is happening over there.

Labels: Blawg Review

(This post is called Blawg Review, and it's about blawging, and reviewing, but Blawg Review is not the name of this blog, that's just the name of the post, and that's why the post is called Blawg Review)

Arlo Guthrie was at my door. Which was kind of funny since I hadn't exactly invited him to Thanksgiving dinner with the law bloggers we were having, but this being Thanksgiving he thought it would be a friendly gesture to show up and help me write Blawg Review. And so he did.

But then he pointed to the graphic down below that I was about to put here that has his album cover with my face on it, and said "Kid, that's my album cover with your face on it." And so it was. He didn't look pleased, and mentioned his red VW microbus out front with shovels, rakes and implements of destruction and he looked back at my computer with a hairy eyeball. I mentioned something about fair use and the law, but he stopped me right there and said, "Kid, I don't like your kind. But I'm going to help you anyway, and besides, I smell turkey," and he came in for a Thanksgiving dinner that couldn't be beat.

When the graphic went up, Anthony Verna from the Trademark Copyright and Entertainment Law Forum sauntered over with one of my wife's hors d'ourves in his hand. Re-using someone else's art was one of his fair use interests, as he saw me do with Arlo's cover that I pirated, and he regaled me with the story of the guy who took Garfield out of the Garfield comics to reveal the angst of his hapless owner, Jon. We spoke a bit about the infringing nature of Garfield minus. Garfield with Dave Fagundes from Prawfsblog. Arlo was not amused.


But while piracy can sometimes be fun that isn't always the case. Jonathon Adler from Volokh came over with Bret Stephens to discuss the more serious business of piracy off the coast of Somalia, and the days when pirates could simply be strung up on a yardarm. Arlo was listening, and eyeballing the rafters of my home as he pondered the law of piracy.

I left that discussion -- being thankful that I live in a place where high seas piracy is not a worry -- when Alice's Restaurant came on the radio (part 1 at right). Blawgers were arriving at my home while Arlo -- the one on the radio, not the one who took off for the play room with a cold beer in his hand -- recounted his 1965 arrest for littering in Stockbridge, Massachusettes while visiting Alice, who didn't live at the restaurant but lived in the church nearby the restaurant, in the bell-tower, with her husband Ray and Fasha the dog. Jeralyn Merritt from TalkLeft went wild when she heard the song come on, as she told us how she still has the Alice's Restaurant cookbook. Her fellow criminal defense lawyer Gideon from A Public Defender, was chatting her up, saying that Arlo's act of littering was a fine example of the Broken Windows Theory, whereby one broken window (or act of littering) encourages more.

With talk of the iconic song in the air (part 2 at left) and the overblown use of police resources to convict him -- notably the twenty seven eight-by-ten color glossy photographs with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what each one was to be used as evidence -- stories started to spill out: Did you hear about the woman tagged as a sex offender because she had oral sex at age 17 with her boyfriend, asked Doug Matacocis? Scott Greenfield appeared -- he loves playing can-you-top-this -- and chatted about the guy who was taken off to the police officers' station for drinking a beer on his Brooklyn stoop. I chipped in my own bit about the Santa Monica cops busting people for exercising on a roadway median. Arlo was back and was listening in and having a ball with these stories, saying "Kid, I'm havin' a ball, and thanks for inviting me," though I didn't recall doing any actual inviting.

Vickie Pynchon from the Settle it Now Negotiation Blog also loved the song, and made a point of stressing how important stories are to negotiations, disputes and the common law. We were joined by others wanting to discuss the bluesy Alice's Restaurant, which some feel lives on in rap. Ray Ward from The (New) Legal Writer and Freddie from Southern Appeal were talking about it, and they thoughtfully provided a legal translation of one duel between rappers.

Settled into a quiet corner, I found law profs Miriam Cherry talking about the law of Thanksgiving with Meredith Miller as well as the law of turkeys. A law of turkeys? Who knew?

With turkey talk in the air, I went outside to call my family in for dinner; they were throwing the football around in the Turkey Bowl -- what else do you think the Turkewitz family would call our private Thanksgiving Day game? Gathering around the table, we got some Thanksgiving toasts, including Susan Cartier Liebel holding up a magnificent photograph, now 90 years old. Bob Sutton, author of The No Asshole Rule, was thankful that greed seems to have gone out of fashion. David Giacalone from f/k/a rose to thank us for hosting, but mostly my wife for cooking, and reminded me in particular that there is a back end to this meal which could use a little help. His toast takes haiku form, of course:

men washing dishes -
an early alarm ends
her Thanksgiving dream

Arlo sidled up to me after that toast, reminding me that when I went to throw the garbage out after this meal, I really ought to be careful about that littering thing.

As I carved the turkey in the kitchen, Gene Quinn from the IP Watchdog was telling me of a patent to debone a turkey. Our resident vegan, Sherry Colb from Dorf on Law, was not amused and wanted to talk about the hypocrisy of gathering to celebrate while an animal gets slaughtered. (There's one in every crowd, Arlo whispered to me.) Meanwhile, Amir Efrati from the WSJ Law Blog shifted the talk to the ritualistic pardons a few lucky turkeys receive from politicians. We chatted about the Sarah Palin and George Bush turkey pardons and then the more serious people pardons that Bush just signed and those he might sign soon. His colleague at the WSJ, Ashby Jones, joined in with more on those begging for a Bush pardon, as did Andrew Golden from the Marquette faculty.

The pardon discussion made Arlo jump up and wave me to the other side of the room, away from everybody else in the room. He remembers the Group W Bench at the induction center on Whitehall Street where he went after getting his draft notice, so that he could be injected, inspected, detected, infected, neglected and selected. That Group W Bench, he told me was "where they put you if you may not be moral enough to join the army after committing your special crime." He wondered if George W's own Group W Bench could pass its own moral fitness tests to join in the escapades they orchestrated.

Orin Kerr from Volokh grabbed my attention to pull me back into the center of the room, after seeing me talking to an empty bench in the corner. A very hot topic this week was Washington Supreme Court Justice Richard Sanders standing up at a Federalist Society dinner with Attorney General Michael Mukasey bellowing out, "Tyrant! You are a tyrant!" before walking out. Mukasey had been talking about Gitmo and torture.

Arlo thought that was great, whispering to me, "But singin' a bar of Alice's Restaurant and walkin' out would have really brought the house down."

With politics in the air, Tatiana von Tauber dropped her fork mid-bite, and let loose about the last election and a certain moose-hunting vice presidential candidate she wrote about at the Legal Satyricon. "I've never been so embarrassed to have a vagina," she said.

John Palfrey jumped into the election discussion, still smoking hot three weeks afterward with no sign of let-up, and spoke of his thankfulness at the Obama election, not just because it was such a great leap forward in racial relations, but for what it meant in voter turnout and election lawyers making sure voters were not disenfranchised as in the past. That was a subject I could relate to.

Walter Olson noted that, in the wake of the Republican fiasco at the ballot box, he is helping to start up a new blog, Secular Right. Perhaps, I tell him while discussing the two main branches of the Republican party, the fundamental contradiction of a less government control libertarian-right will finally confront head-on the religious right that wants more government control.

Between bites of turkey stuffing, Daniel Schwartz from the Connecticut Employment Law Blog felt the need to jump in with some practical discussion. "All this yammering about politics is all well and good," he said, but "what does an actual employer do when an actual employee is heading off to war, like it or not?" Someone from the Sheppard Mullin firm, who I could not recognize, joined him in debate about the Employee Free Choice Act and the ramifications for employers.

Greenfield was back. He looked at that last link from Sheppard Mullin and saw a lot of useful employment law information posted by a law firm without an actual author's name, but then saw a sales pitch for the firm's services at the bottom of it. Greenfield -- easily the most prolific legal blogger in the country -- had a tough week arguing about lawyer blogs and marketing and professionalism. He's not pleased that some of the commenters tried to hijack his site with their self-promotional claptrap and he set off a firestorm in the comments of a follow-up post on marketing. He's even re-printed a long critical email of his attitude and his site has become, for the moment, ground zero in the discussion of law blog advertising/marketing.

Carolyn Elefant was listening intently to Greenfield's marketing rants, and noted on a related topic that, at a time of giving thanks, there is a wrong way to express thanks (because its marketing and it might mean more business) a right way (because you want to). In fact, she wrote about it four years ago for Law.com. She then whipped out her guitar, to sing. But it wasn't an Arlo song and he wasn't keen on seeing his thunder taken away, on Thanksgiving of all days, and shot Elefant a dirty look as she warbled about the the myriad ways that the practice of law is a changin'.

All this heavy duty talk of marketing and blogging was started to drive the light-hearted folks at the tablawg Above the Law a little nuts, so they were glad to hear Elefant sing. (Arlo, not so much, seeing as how she sang a Dylan song on his day.) Calling for more booze, ATL saw the chance to liven up the party. With the wine flowing nicely, Elie Mystal announced the ATL holiday party, all invited. That worked well with the brand-new legal matchmaking service ATL now has; not matching lawyers with law firms but with each other for dates. Who will be the first to sue ATL for something or other?

Hearing Dylan was too much for Arlo. He grabbed a little pumpkin pie and headed for the door. But I asked him to take the day back with his music, and begged for a special version of Alice's Restaurant. I wanted to sing a special one, if only he would strum the tune for me. He wasn't particularly moved to do a special one, which is why he said, "Kid, you ain't special." But he did like the dinner and pie, saying it was a Thanksgiving dinner that couldn't be beat, and so he agreed. But first we had to wait for it to come around on the guitar.... OK, here it comes:

You can get anything you want at this week's Blawg Review.
You can get anything you want at this week's Blawg Review.
Just read it through and click on a link,
See what they got and be back in a blink,
You can get anything you want at this week's Blawg Review.

He looked up at me and said "That was horrible. Now ordinarily, kid, I would tell you to sing louder to save the world and all that, with four part harmony and feeling. But the truth of the matter is, that this is a case of you being tone-deaf and singing it louder won't make it any better."


And with that, he headed on off in his red VW microbus with its shovels, rakes and implements of destruction. He had his annual Thanksgiving gig at Carnegie Hall with Pete Seeger to do. Then he was headed to California to visit Colin Samuels, who won Blawg Review of the Year three years running using Dante's Divine Comedy. Samuels is reportedly working on part four of the trilogy, and will host next week's Blawg Review at Infamy or Praise.


(All graphics by Dan Turkewitz, modifying existing images, except blog promotion graphic by ProBlogger.)

Labels: Blawg Review

'Tis that time again for me to host Blawg Review. So while you folks stuff yourself with stuffing this week, I'll be cooped up in the home office, ignoring my family and trying to cobble together the best of the legal blogosphere for a short week.

So spare me some hard work and pouty faces from the kids and another kind of face from my wife and write something brilliant. And then let me know. You can submit your post (or those of another equally brilliant blogger, though I know no one can really be your equal at this blogging biz) at this link, or by emailing it to post [at] BlawgReview [dot] com.

And it's important to note that, just as with my marathon blawg review last year, the theme will not be personal injury law. This will be a free-range review in which I'll be able to get any subject in, so long as it's interesting. It's also important to note that this blawg review will be shorter than the marathon one. Not only because it couldn't possibly be longer, but because only three of you actually read to the end of the marathon one, which was a shame because I hid lots of good stuff at the end and you never read it.

Remember that I'll have little to work with unless you write, unlike that lucky stiff Joshua Fruchter from Lawyer Casting who did an evolutionary Blawg Review #187 this week. As you can see from his, he had tons to work with.

But I do have a theme. It's just that it's top secret and I can't tell you what it is (unless your initials are BHO and you happen to be making headlines, or if your initials are GWB and you've authorized me to be tortured, in which case I promise to fold as quickly as the chair I'll be sitting in Thursday). For the theme is not only like Winston Churchill's riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma but it's also stuffed inside a turducken heading for the deep-fryer. It's my way of keeping the lid on it.

But I do hope that once it's over you can safely pass the word of its brilliance and warble to your fellow man (or woman, it's a figure of speech, deal with it), that you can get anything you want at this week's Blawg Review.

Labels: Blawg Review

For the third year running, Colin Samuels at Infamy and Praise has taken the crown for Blawg Review of the Year. He did it with the third part of his Dante-inspired trilogy, Paradiso.

My own marathon inspired Blawg Review #134 came in second, just one vote short. Just one measly vote. (No one ever said that knocking off the king would be easy.) Of course, that includes the nomination I tossed his way for his creative genius, so one way to look at it is that I need to be more competitive. Anne Reed's jury selection themed review came in right behind me.

But, thankfully, the Blawg Review is not really a competition despite the award. It's a way to round-up interesting posts from around the blogosphere, and if you feel inspired, to be creative. As the review rotates around the legal blogosphere, being hosted by different blogs each week, it is truly a communal effort. If there is any one person to thank, it is the anonymous Editor who clearly doesn't do it for the glory. Both Colin Samuels and Diane Levin, two Blawg Review sherpas who assist in the project, have cross-posted their thoughts and gratitude.

Samuels, by the way, claims that with the trilogy now done, he will retire his crown and not bother with the little-known fourth chapter of Dante's work, Snakes on a Gondola. But I do worry that, like Douglas Adams and the Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy, there will somehow be a fourth part of the trilogy, and more. Or worse yet, that he takes on the Harry Potter seven-parter.

Labels: Blawg Review

The race for Blawg Review of the Year will end soon, with the time to nominate ending on January 14. (Fortunately, I already had a handy graphic for this race.)

According to the anonymous Editor, the rules for nominating are:

This year, the award for Blawg Review of the Year will be given to that issue of Blawg Review, from #89 to #140 inclusive, that is nominated by the greatest number of those who have hosted an issue of Blawg Review from #1 through #140. Each of those hosts may nominate for Blawg Review of the Year 2007 as many issues, from #89 to #140 inclusive, as they wish to recognize for excellence by linking such nomination(s) on their blogs in a post dated not later than January 14, 2008, titled "Blawg Review Nominations" linking to the issue(s) nominated for Blawg Review of the Year. If you haven't hosted Blawg Review yet, but are scheduled to host an upcoming issue of Blawg Review, your nominations will be counted as well. Just send an email to the editor, including a link to your post, to ensure that your nominations are counted. Nominations for one's own presentation of Blawg Review, however excellent, will not be counted as a peer-reviewed nomination.

In this particular case, telling you to vote early and vote often won't help.

A list of nominees to date can be found here.

Labels: Blawg Review

The anonymous Editor of Blawg Review has opened nominations for Best Blawg Review of the Year. The nominating is open, according to his rules, only to those that have hosted one of the past 140 Blawg Reviews or those that have already signed up for a future one. (Edit: Nominations are now open until Jan. 14th, due to the holiday.)

The editor is looking for a peer-reviewed award (or as close as the legal blogosphere can approximate), as opposed to a popularity contest.

Since he points out, quite rightly, that such "best of" awards are so highly subjective, I'm going to participate and nominate by listing those reviews that inspired me when I wrote my marathon themed Blawg Review #134 this year. The editor's recommendations of some of the presentations that might be considered for nomination, which include mine, are up at Virtually Blind.

In listing these reviews, I tip my hat to each as I borrowed ideas and concepts from each writer and stood on their shoulders to create my own:

#89, The Mummers Veil by the anonymous Editor himself, inspired me to indulge in fantasy visits with different bloggers. A rigid regard for the truth, I understood, was not necessary to presenting the best posts of the week. The point was to simply point to good law blog posts, making it available in a fun, creative way. Doing so in the context of a story often makes it more interesting (if you can pull it off without being "annoying, strained and distracting" as David Giacalone once wrote).

#101, from Diana Skaggs at The Divorce Law Journal, based on the Kentucky Derby. Since I had decided one month earlier to host a November review based on the NYC Marathon, a review based on the Kentucky Derby certainly caught my interest. She galloped through the legal blogosphere in winning fashion in a creative review that clearly was long in the making. I loved watching her mid-stride integration of law and racing.

#106 from Brett Trout at IT Blawg was based on a motorcycle race track. With another racing review, I took mental notes on how different parts of a race course, or different concepts, might be used to help introduce different legal topics in a very non-traditional manner.

#127, from Anne Reed's Deliberations, was based on jury selection. As a trial lawyer that obviously appeals to me, and I watched as she took 17 different selection tips and matched them to posts. In her review however, she didn't just link but went into the personalities of the posters to match them up with different concepts.

#137, by Colin Samuels at Infamy or Praise, was based on the third part of Dante's Divine Comedy, Paradise. While #137 came after my own, the Inferno themed #35 and the Purgatory themed #86 came before. In these, Dante travels with his guides, the poet Virgil and later Beatrice. This inspired me to add a guide of my own -- Marty, an alter ego or one-man Greek chorus -- who ran the race with me and would drop in from time to time to comment. While I couldn't pull off the wonderful literacy of Colin's pieces, his posts were there to remind me that the bounds of a review are limited only by the creativity of the mind.

Two final notes on the Blawg Reviews:

First, while the editor has an interesting idea with the nominating process, the reality is that many folks are out of town for the long holiday weekend. I'm guessing the nominating will therefore be very light. Having a yearly award in April would have a much better response rate. Yeah, yeah, I know. (Edit: Nominations are now open until Jan. 14th, due to the holiday.)

Second, it seems that the vast majority of reviews are written by practicing attorneys. Professors are notably absent. (In fact, professors rarely even acknowledge their existence, an exception being Prof. Dan Solove and his band of merry Concurring Opinionators for #75.) I haven't figured out why yet, since the primary purpose is to simply round up interesting blog postings, and their own postings are often included. Is there a reason professors are less likely to let their hair down and go outside their usual comfort zones?

Labels: Blawg Review, Blogging