Blawg Review

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

Ed's Blawg Review Nominations

It's that time of year when law bloggers wonder which issue of Blawg Review will receive the honor of being named Blawg Review of the Year. And, this year, who gets this recognition will be determined not by the editor but by the nominations posted by previous hosts of Blawg Review and those listed on the roster of Future Hosts for the upcoming year.

Having hosted seven issues Blawg Review myself, including #89, #100, #107 and #120 in 2007, my nominations here will count no more but no less than those of anyone else who is qualified to have their nominations for Blawg Review of the Year counted.

Every issue of Blawg Review is special to me, each in its own way, so the nominations below are not so much my favorites but are those I'd like to get special consideration for outstanding presentations that, upon further review, stand the test of time.

Blawg Review #91 by Greg Worthen
Blawg Review #93 by Kevin Thompson
Blawg Review #94 by Diane Levin
Blawg Review #102 by George Wallace
Blawg Review #110 by Norman Fernandez
Blawg Review #124 by George Lenard
Blawg Review #126 by Anita Campbell
Blawg Review #127 by Anne Reed
Blawg Review #134 by Eric Turkewitz
Blawg Review #137 by Colin Samuels

If you've hosted Blawg Review, or are scheduled to host an upcoming issue, please share with your readers the best of Blawg Review 2007 by posting nominations for Blawg Review of the Year 2007.

Not Another Blawg Award

With the success of the Simply the Best blawg meme and the recent announcement of Dennis Kennedy's Blawggies, following the ABA Journal's Blawg 100, it seems the last thing the blawgosphere needs is yet another list of who's the best law blog in whatever category or niche, least of all another award from some anonymous editor. Rightly so, it's been said that which blog is best in whatever category is often very subjective, and is for readers to decide for themselves. In rare cases where it can be argued that one or another law blog is objectively the best in whatever category, no one needs some self-appointed editor to tell them what's obvious to anyone who reads blogs as regularly at those who follow Blawg Review.

In 2005 and 2006 the Blawg Review Awards were great but we won't rest on our laurels. After Colin Samuels bagged the award for Blawg Review of the Year for this in 2005 and for this in 2006, the only way to be sure that the fix wasn't in again for 2007 was to impeach the judge and base the award on an open and verifiable peer-review. This won't be another one of those blog awards that is won by mustering loyal readers and fanboys to "vote early and often" -- no way.

We have enjoyed many outstanding presentations of Blawg Review in 2007 and, as announced today in Second Life, we're going to focus on what has made Blawg Review as popular as it is for 140 consecutive weeks. This year, the only Blawg Review Award will be given for peer-review and recognition of one of these presentations as the undisputed Blawg Review of the Year. To ensure that the most deserving issue of Blawg Review is given due recognition as Blawg Review of the Year 2007, please follow these nomination rules:
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.
Let the Blawg Review with the most qualified nominations win!

"Blawg Review Nominations" posts will be listed and linked below, as they are published and brought to the editor's attention.


Eric Turkewitz nominates #89, #101, #106, #127 and #137.
Diane Levin nominates #101, #102, #124, #134, and #137.
Peter Black nominates #93, #128 and #130.
Brett Trout nominates #102, #109, #123, #127, #129, #134, #137
Nearly Legal nominates #91, #116, #128 and #137.
Tom Colson nominates #93, #102, #106, #134 and #137.
Ed nominates #91, #93, #94, #102, #110, #124, #126, #127, #134, and #137.
George Wallace nominates #93, #122, #124, #127, #130, #134, and #137.
J.D. Hull nominates #94, #102, #116, #127, #134 and #137.
Kevin Thompson nominates #130+130 and #122.
Colin Samuels nominates #89, #116, #122, #127, and #134.
David Donoghue nominates #95, #106, #126, #127 and #134.
Charon QC nominates #115, #116, #131, #125, #134, and #137.
Todd Smith nominates #110, #118, #125 and #132.
Susan Cartier Liebel nominates #110, #127, #134 and #137.
Gideon nominates #117, #124, #125, #127, and #137.

So This Is Christmas?


Blawg Review #140 is a Christmas presentation by Jonathan Frieden, who is not the anonymous blogger in the photo above.

Merry Christmas, everyone. ~Ed.

All I Want For Christmas



It's about giving a gift that keeps on giving. So if you'd like to give some link love to lawyers who blog, this is a good time to review your blogrolls and start the new year off right with resolutions to link more often to the best that the blawgosphere has to offer each and every week. It's all about love and sharing, at Christmas and throughout the year. Have you added Blawg Review to your blogroll yet?

Season's Greetings


It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas, even without the snow.

Blawg Review Awards in SL


The nomination ceremony for this year's Blawg Review Awards will be held on Thursday, December 27, 2007 at 11:00 a.m. Pacific time at the offices of the Second Life Bar Association. Second Life users can follow this SLURL to the Second Life Bar Association offices on the 6th floor of the "Justice Center." And, for this special occasion, we've retained an experienced Master of Ceremonies.

If anyone wonders why the heck real lawyers should pay attention to what's going on in Second Life, may we recommend a recent blog post about Virtual Law by Mike Dillon, Sun's General Counsel.

Like the Blawg Review Awards 2005 presented by She-Hulk and the Blawg Review Awards 2006 delivered by Santa Claus, this year's awards will be announced right here, as usual, on the last Monday of the year, New Year's Eve.

Health Wonk Review

David Harlow, who hosted Blawg Review #88 last year, as well as Blawg Review #129 this year, is now hosting Health Wonk Review at Healthblawg.
Health Wonk Review is a biweekly compendium of the best of the health policy blogs. More than two dozen health policy, infrastructure, insurance, technology, and managed care bloggers participate by contributing their best recent blog postings to a roving digest, with each issue hosted at a different participant's blog. For participants, it's a way to network and share ideas, and for those readers who don't live in this space every day, it's a way to sample some of the latest thinking and the "best of the best."
David Harlow can't seem to get enough carnival action on Healthblawg -- he's scheduled to host Blawg Review again on April 7, 2008.
Blawg Review is the blog carnival for everyone interested in law. A blog carnival is a traveling post about a topic or theme. For example, there's Carnival of the Capitalists, concerning business and economics, while Grand Rounds is about medicine and healthcare, and Blawg Review has topics discussed by lawyers, law students and law professors.

A peer-reviewed blog carnival, the host of each Blawg Review decides which of the submissions and recommended posts are suitable for inclusion in the presentation. And the host is encouraged to source another dozen or so interesting posts to fit with any special theme of that issue of Blawg Review. The host's personal selections usually include several that reflect the character and subject interests of the host blawg, recognizing that the regular readership of the blog should find some of the usual content, and new readers of the blog via Blawg Review ought to get some sense of the unique perspective and subject specialties of the host.

Blawg Review benefits from the widest possible participation and relies on submissions and recommendations from all law bloggers, and many of our previous hosts continue to be our strongest contributors.
If you'd like to host Blawg Review next year, along with David Harlow and many other savvy law bloggers, the dates available are shown in the sidebar on the home page of this site. And here are the guidelines for hosting Blawg Review when you're ready.

Human Rights Day

PG at de novo hosts Blawg Review #138 on Human Rights Day, which is celebrated annually around the world on December 10th.

As noted in Wikipedia, the date was chosen to honor the United Nations General Assembly's adoption and proclamation, on 10 December 1948, of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the first global enunciation of human rights. The commemoration was established in 1950, when the General Assembly invited all states and interested organizations to celebrate the day as they saw fit.
"Taken as a whole, the Delegation of the United States believes that this is a good document – even a great document – and we propose to give it our full support. [...] In giving our approval to the Declaration today it is of primary importance that we keep clearly in mind the basic character of the document. It is not a treaty; it is not an international agreement. It is not and does not purport to be a statement of law or of legal obligation. It is a Declaration of basic principles of human rights and freedoms[....] This Universal Declaration of Human Rights may well become the international Magna Carta of all men everywhere."
~Eleanor Roosevelt, first chairwoman of the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) that drafted the Declaration, 9 December 1948.

The day is a high point in the calendar of UN headquarters in New York City, United States, and is normally marked by both high-level political conferences and meetings and by cultural events and exhibitions dealing with human rights issues.

Oscar Mayer Wienermobile


I'm here in Newport Beach, where exotic cars outnumber humans, and what do you think is in the hotel parking lot?

Oscar Mayer's famous Wienermobile, which has toured the United States for over 70 years. The first was created in 1936, and only six have since been built.

It would be funny, if I didn't have to try to fall asleep singing this over and over in my head.

Oh, I wish I were an Oscar Mayer wiener
That is what I truly want to be
'Cause if I were an Oscar Mayer wiener
Everyone would be in love with me.

Here's the story behind the Oscar Mayer Wiener jingle.

Our Foreblawggers

In a companion-piece to the ABA Journal Blawg 100 published this month, the editors name seven lawyers who started the blawg revolution -- Foreblawggers.

Three of them, Denise Howell, Howard Bashman, and David Lat, have hosted Blawg Review. The others, not yet. How 'bout it, Professor Volokh?

Inexplicably omitted from that list of lawyers who started the blawg revolution are Evan Schaeffer, Kevin Heller, Ernest Svenson and Gordon Smith, who have all hosted Blawg Review.

What about Dennis Kennedy and Glenn Reynolds, who haven't hosted yet -- not to mention the recalcitrant Professor Bainbridge.

Blawg Review In Paradiso


Following the Blawg Review of the Year Award-winning Inferno-themed Blawg Review #35 and the Purgatorio-themed Blawg Review #86, The Divine Comedy's third cantica, Paradiso, provides the theme for Blawg Review #137, to which Colin Samuels of Infamy or Praise welcomes us this week.

This is another classic Blawg Review by Colin Samuels, as expected, but will it be chosen over many new contenders for the prestigious Blawg Review of the Year Award? There's only 28 blogging days and three more issues to go before the Blawg Review Awards ceremony on the last day of 2007.

If you're new to this community of law bloggers, and wonder what's the big deal about these Blawg Review Awards, you might want to revisit the outstanding blawgs that received recognition and honors in 2005 and 2006. We're planning something really different for the Blawg Review Awards 2007.