Blawg Review

It's not just a blog carnival; it's the law! ~ a fool in the forest

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Blawg Review #40 is being hosted next at Small Business Trends, where Anita Campbell, a former GC turned entrepreneur, is managing editor of one of the most widely-read business blogs.

What's the concept for this special business law issue of Blawg Review?

We approached the organizers of the Carnival of the Capitalists (the business blog carnival that inspired Blawg Review) for the name of a business blogger who would be their top pick to host a special issue of Blawg Review for business blog readers.

Rob May at BusinessPundit was quick to recommend Anita Campbell, a businesswoman with a legal background who had recently hosted the CotC on her Small Business Trends blog—a great presentation. We were delighted that Anita immediately "got it" and was prepared to get involved with lawyers, law students, and law professors to present a special business law issue of Blawg Review on her business blog.

Other lawyers we know have hosted the CotC, as well, including Professor Bainbridge, in the early days, then Professor Gordon Smith, and more recently, the intellectual property lawyers who "group blog" at Rethink(IP). In the next few weeks, Carnival of the Capitalists will be hosted by our lawyer friends, the Patent Baristas, and following them it's two of those Rethink(IP) guys again, this time at PHOSITA.

What have these intellectual property lawyers figured out about business blog carnivals? Lawyers have often imagined a perfect world wide web in which clients read law blogs, not just business blogs. Well, here's the perfect opportunity for lawyers who blog to get their best posts presented to a very savvy audience of business owners and entrepreneurs.

An experienced business blogger with a legal background has agreed to host Blawg Review on her Small Business Trends blog, where she will feature those law blog posts that speak best to the interests of small business owners and entrepreneurs. Can it get any better than this?

Before choosing your best post for this issue of Blawg Review, take a few minutes to check out Anita Campbell's business blog and see why Forbes included Small Business Trends in their Best of the Web. You might be surprised to see the topics being discussed on this leading business blog.

In her recent post, Fighting Back at Eminent Domain Land Grabs, Anita says, "Journalist James Pethokoukis makes an excellent point about eminent domain’s threat to small business in a report at U.S. News and World Report, when he writes that fighting back can be effective," which she relates to her recent SMB Trendwire podcast:
This point about fighting back was echoed by business owner Nancy Kurdziel in my recent Small Business Trends Radio broadcast about eminent domain. She told how she mobilized the support of the NFIB, state legislators, and the general public (through a website), in order to fight back. With the support of the NFIB, the state legislature is now mobilized and a corrective measure will go on the ballot in Michigan later this year. Where before the local city officials were not really listening, now they are. As she attests, it does make a difference.
A couple of weeks ago, on Small Business Trends, Anita Campbell pointed her readers to Evan Schaeffer's Blawg Review #38, which she called "a great set of top ten resolutions for writing a better blog" that she highly recommended for any business blogger. And here's how she explained this carnival of law bloggers to her readership:
Someone emailed me recently asking why I frequently point out Blawg Review.

Simple: small businesses need to be aware of legal issues. We operate our businesses in a world of increasing complexity, and legal issues are part of it.

Blawg Review and law blogs are one way to become more knowledgeable about legal issues relatively painlessly and inexpensively. Some of the law blogs are highly entertaining and witty. What’s more, you may be reading something for free written by a lawyer who would otherwise charge $250 an hour in their law practice.

From their earliest inception, blogs tended to attract a large number of lawyers. You’ll find more lawyers (including law professors and law students) writing blogs than you will accountants or dentists or doctors. In fact, some of the biggest blogs on the Internet are written by lawyers — Instapundit comes to mind. Hence, the term “blawg” was coined, by combining “law” plus “blog” to mean a blog written on law topics.

What’s more, if you are like me you might forge a business relationship with one of the law bloggers and hire them as your attorney. Think it can’t happen? I hired an attorney as a result of reading his blog.
If you've written a good post on your law blog that would be of special interest to a business owner or entrepreneur, this will no doubt be one of the best issues of Blawg Review to share your expertise.

If this is your first time participating in Blawg Review as a contributor, you can follow the easy Submission Guidelines, which explain how to submit your posts each week.