The December 2007 edition of the ABA Journal has arrived online, and is surely getting a lot of attention today across the blawgiverse, with the cover feature, titled “The ABA Journal Blawg 100.” The f/k/a Gang is even skipping its afternoon nap, to tell you how pleased we are to be among the inaugural Blawg 100, chosen as one of the “best web sites by lawyers, for lawyers.” You’ll find the entire list of the 100 honored blawgs here. And, you are invited to vote for your favorite law-related weblog, in a dozen categories:
Go here to vote in one of 12 categories: Generally Speaking, Ivory Tower, Your So-Called Life, Lawyers Behaving Badly, All Business, Black Letter Law, Crime Time, Gossip, Politics for Sport, Lawyer’s Toolkit, JDs in Training, and Benched. You can also “see how ABAJournal.com readers rank the blawgs in each category. Voting ends Jan. 2. You may vote for as many blawgs as you wish, but you can vote for any particular blawg only once.”
ABA Journal staffers Molly McDonough and Sarah Randag explain that “When we set out to name the ABA Journal’s inaugural Blawg 100, we knew we were up for a challenge. There are between 2,000 and 3,000 legal blogs—what we call blawgs. How many of those are worth a click? Turns out, quite a few.” And they are clearly correct that:
“The trick is fitting them neatly into a category. By their very nature, bloggers defy categorization. What in one week is a blog devoted to the black-letter practice of law is the next week a heartwarming chronicle of a baby’s first steps or a devastating battle with cancer.”
We held our breaths to see which category this split-personality scatter-shot easily-distracted multi-faceted website would be competing in, and were please to be among five weblawgs in the ethics category, which the ABA Journalistas have dubbed Lawyers Behaving Badly. [f/k/a was the very first ethics-related blawg and, as our URL suggests, was once known as known as ethicalEsq] Click this link to vote for your favorite legal ethics weblog.
As part of its weblog focus, the new ABA Journal includes the article “ForeBlawggers,” which has profiles of “Seven lawyers who started the blawg revolution.” They are Denise Howell (of Bag and Baggage which celebrates its 6th anniversary today, Nov. 28, and more), Thomas C. Goldstein (of SCOTUSblog), David Lat (formerly of Beneath Their Robes, and now gossiping at Above the Law), Prof. Eugene Volokh (of The Volokh Conspiracy), Judge Richard A. Posner (of The Becker-Posner Blog), Howard Bashman (of How Appealing), and Glenn Greewald (of Salon’s Unclaimed Territory)
Thanks to ABA Journal for this honor and attention. Thanks to all those lawyers who give me something to complain about (although a little less aggravation, and more edification, would be nice). And, thanks to all our readers for making the making of f/k/a worth the effort.
proud host
his orchard bursting
with fireflies……………………. by John Stevenson, from Some of the Silence