ABA Journal Blawg 100

Here are the 100 best Web sites by lawyers, for lawyers, as chosen by the editors of the ABA Journal.

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.

Generally speaking...we're in very good company! Some 26 of the ABA Journal Blawg 100 have already hosted their own Blawg Review, and several more of them are scheduled to host upcoming issues.

Vote here for your favorite law blogs and, better yet, stop by this site every week to check out the best legal blog posts in Blawg Review and discover great new blawgs that aren't yet on anybody's list of top law blogs -- but, undoubtedly, will be someday.

Blawg Review Up Down Under

Blawg Review #136 is up at Aussie law blogger Peter Black's award-nominated Freedom to Differ. Pete enjoys a good YouTube video as much as the next bloke. Well, maybe more, actually!

So where the bloody hell are you?

Thanksgiving Mummers?

We can give thanks again this year that Peter Black, an associate lecturer in law at the Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, Australia, who hosted Blawg Review #85 on Freedom to Differ, is hosting Blawg Review #136 so we can enjoy this long holiday weekend gathering together with family, friends, and loved ones, to reinforce the ties that bind us and give thanks for our many blessings.

Thanksgiving Day is an American institution -- one of the few which we have originated and which has become really National. Its primary associations are religious and serious. The strengthening of family ties and the building up of character are among its natural purposes. Good cheer and hospitality rather than a reckless carnival spirit have always been its distinguishing characteristics.

Mummers mummering, on the other hand, appears to be an irrepressible theme around here.

And the carnival spirit seems to be alive and well on Thanksgiving Day in New York City 75 years later. Nothing defines the Thanksgiving holiday like Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. Heh.

Equal Opportunity & TGDOR

Today is Equal Opportunity Day and our host this week, Jillian Weiss, has published the first of a two-part presentation on this theme.

The first part of Blawg Review #135 is hosted on Transgender Workplace Diversity, by Dr. Jillian Todd Weiss, Associate Professor of Law and Society at Ramapo College, and author of Transgender Workplace Diversity: Policy Tools, Training Issues and Communication Strategies for HR and Legal Professionals.

November 20th is Transgender Day of Remembrance and, reprising the theme of last year's Blawg Review #84 by Jen Burke at Transcending Gender, this year a special part of Blawg Review #135 is hosted by Denise Brogan-Kator at the Rainbow Law Center on TGDOR. Denise is an extraordinary individual who has looked at life and love from both sides now and brings a unique perspective to the practice of law.

Blawg Review Marathon

Blawg Review #134 is being run this week by Eric Turkewitz at the New York Personal Injury Law Blog. You won't want to miss this one -- it's a marathon, not a sprint.

Eric Turkewitz tells me that the inspiration for his New York Marathon theme was this Mummer On Parade post and Blawg Review #89: The Mummer's Veil.

Indeed, this week's Blawg Review #134 is an insightful run through the best of the legal blogosphere with an exemplary law blogger, who demonstrates once again that this project has legs. Following the course of the New York City marathon, it's worth reading from start to finish!

Update: On the first blogiversary of New York Personal Injury Law Blog, Eric Turkewitz offered these thoughts on blogging:

This has been a real hoot, but it has also taken a great deal of time. The one oddity that stood out was I was placed on the blogroll of Overlaywered while at the same time being a guest contributor to its arch nemesis, Tort Deform. I'm not 100% certain what it means, but I think that has to be good, especially for a beginner.

I've listed some of the most popular posts here, but my personal favorite was the marathon Blawg Review #134 that I put up earlier this week, essentially the culmination of my rookie year. It was long, not just because marathons are long but, because I had so much fun conceptualizing, researching and writing it. I started making notes in a separate file six months ago on ideas and situations, much the way I make notes on trial themes and tactics from the day a case comes in.

The streets and crowds of New York, provided unlimited opportunities to raise different subjects and allowed me to weave a fabric using both fact and fiction that included bloggers, the race and the city. The post got goofier and goofier as the race wore on because that is one thing that happens with exhaustion. A tip of the hat to the people that made it to the finish line.

Well done, Eric. Congratulations on a good year.

And congrats, as well, to David Lat of Above the Law fame, who actually ran the New York City Marathon this year finishing in under five hours and bettering the time of his previous NYC Marathon.

Lest We Forget

Charon QC has a poppy on his law blog's header today in memory of the war dead.

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
— John McCrae

While it's Veterans Day in the USA, November 11th is Armistice Day in France and New Zealand, and Remembrance Day in the UK and other countries of the British Commonwealth, including Canada and Australia, where the day is devoted to remembering those who made the ultimate sacrifice for their countries in time of war, as Americans do on Memorial Day.

As in previous years, on Veterans Day and Memorial Day, we take a pause in our regular blogging duties at Blawg Review to thank those who served and honor those who gave so much on our behalf.

The words "Lest We Forget" form the refrain of "Recessional" [a poem by Rudyard Kipling]. The phrase became popular as a warning about the perils of hubris and the inevitable decline of imperial power.

To Kipling, the Empire is very much alive, he was a devout imperialist. The history of western Christendom shows a recurrent pattern. When nations rise to wealth and power they are inclined to forget their God. The understanding was that it was Divine Providence who brought them the material and spiritual blessings that nurtured them into a position of greatness among the nations.

Here are the telling lines of Rudyard Kipling's poem. The line "that we will not forget" says it was the Christian God who enabled the British to be the empire they then were; written for the queen's jubilee, this refers to her title of defender of the faith and, in essence the burden to rule over the less privileged.

Far-called, our navies melt away;
On dune and headland sinks the fire:
Lo, all our pomp of yesterday
Is one with Nineveh and Tyre!
Judge of the Nations, spare us yet.
Lest we forget—lest we forget!

The phrase later passed into common usage after the World War I, becoming linked with Remembrance Day observations; it came to be a plea not to forget past sacrifices, and was often found as the only wording on war memorials, or used as an epitaph.

Blawg Review Networking

This past week, I've been traveling around California, meeting up in the real world with some of the law bloggers who have already hosted Blawg Review.

Last night, we partied from after work to past midnight at the offices of the The Williams Lindberg Law Firm in Newport Beach, where my new best friend Craig Williams hosted the Fifth Annual Fall Harvest Open House. Most of the guests were area lawyers, judges, appellate justices, clients, vendors and hangers-on a.k.a. bloggers. Dan Hull was there, and we three stayed late in Craig's sumptuous corner office and talked about law blogging with a Hollywood actress and a lovely young law office administrator -- who knew law blogging could be so captivating when shared with good food, great wine, and interesting people.

Earlier in the week, I was a fly on the wall at a law bloggers presentation at Stanford University, and later that evening met up with Professor Ann Althouse and other stars of the blawgosphere at the Bay Area Blawgers get-together organized by Professor Eric Goldman of the Santa Clara University School of Law's High Tech Law Institute, hosted in downtown San Francisco at the offices of Fenwick & West. It was a great gathering of about 75 law bloggers, many of whom knew each other only online. Quite an experience.

It was wonderful to meet everyone there, especially our steadfast blawg sherpa and back-up editor of Blawg Review, Colin Samuels, who stands ready to take over as editor if I get disappeared for flying while anonymous. A few of us, including the effervescent Cathy Gellis, went out on the town afterwards to discuss blogging over beers. By the time the bar closed around 1 a.m. it was just me and Kevin O'Keefe, like old war-buddies left to stagger back to our hotels, saying to ourselves, "Isn't it freakin' amazing the people we've made friends with through blogging."

Good times. In the end, all this blogger networking reminded me of Hugh MacLeod and his cartoon on the back of a business card that illustrates how the network is more powerful than the node. That would be a good business card for Ed, I thought, pretty well summing up what Blawg Review is all about.

Best Law Blog Finalists

Vote here now for all the finalists for The 2007 Weblog Awards, four of which have hosted Blawg Review. Do you know which ones?

Congratulations to David Lat at Above the Law, Howard Bashman at How Appealing, Ronald Coleman at Likelihood of Confusion, and Peter Black at Freedom to Differ, who have hosted Blawg Review, already, and to the others we hope will too.

Click here to Vote for the Best Law Blog Finalists

* Above the Law
* How Appealing
* Volokh Conspiracy
* Sui Generis
* Balkinization
* Simple Justice
* Wall Street Journal Law Blog
* SCOTUS Blog
* Likelihood Of Confusion
* Ms JD Changing the Face of the Legal Profession

Among the finalists in other categories, we note several legally-oriented bloggers, as well. TechCrunch, by Michael Arrington, is a finalist for the Best Blog. DailyKos, founded by Markos Moulitsas is among the finalists for Best Online Community, as is Groklaw, founded by paralegal Pamela Jones. In the category for Best Individual Blogger, we find Professor Glenn Reynolds on InstaPundit going up against Peter Black, who's hosted Blawg Review once already, and is scheduled to host again later this month on Freedom to Differ.

Update: The results are now in.