Bloggers-At-Law

I have needed to update the blawg roll here for some time, and since Ernie did so much heavy lifting this week, now seemed like a particularly opportune juncture. ;-)

A couple of observations before the linkfest begins.

(1) Consider: in the span of oh, a little more than a year, the ranks of law bloggers have grown from a handful to numbers that begin to suggest something like a loosely joined, international confederation of considerable depth and expertise in all things legal. There are specialists at every level, in every field, from bankruptcy to corporate securities to employment to election law to health care, not to mention all manner of IP gurus and litigators of both the trial and appellate stripe. Unlike many other, more formally joined groups of legal professionals, its ties to academia are strong, it listens to those with particular insights about research, client service, business methods and technology, and everything its members contribute has both recruiting and marketing ramifications.

(2) Why is this happening? Well, no quick and easy answers here, but at the recommendation of Satan himself Johnny Appleseed Christopher Locke -- if he suggests you read something, I suggest you not delay -- I started Shoshana Zuboff's and James Maxmin's new book, The Support Economy: Why Corporations Are Failing Individuals And The Next Episode Of Captalism. It's roughly 400 pages of penetrating economic theory, observation, analysis and prognostication. (Of the ten reader reviews currently posted at Amazon, nine people gave this five stars, the highest rating. One gave it one star, the lowest. I have the feeling this book is destined to trigger such polarized reactions, but also that criticism is more likely to target its theories about the future than its assessments of the past and present.) I wish I could say this were the sort of item that usually prompts me to 1-Click, but sadly I'm more apt to go for a beach chair than something written by a Harvard Business School one. In this instance I couldn't be more pleased to have bucked my own tendencies. If you work in the legal field, are a blogger, or both -- or heck, if you stumbled on this page in search of a nice professional yoga bag -- this book is bound to make you examine your own motivations, and how our collective motivations might dramatically impact the broader economic equation.

Obtuse enough for you? Good! On with the updates:

Genie Tyburski's The Virtual Chase Alert. Genie should have been included here earlier but fell prey to my wondering whether her intelligent, useful updates were a "blog"; I get them in newsletter form. Screw it, it's an honor to include her.

Similar considerations led to my delay in linking to Sean Carter's columns and home page, and likewise are hereby abandoned.

Camera Lucida is by a lawyer, photographer and somewhat mysterious friend of Ernie's, and helps point up a distinction between what I do here and what others may do elsewhere. I like to check in on those in the legal field who blog. I don't care if they're not blogging about legal things; often, it's preferable. Judging by this writer's posts to date, I'm betting she, like me, may be inclined to comment on whatever moves her.

The consciousness behind J-Files is yet more mysterious; he says he's not a lawyer but is "in the world of law." I'm sorry, but I just don't have the heading for that! In recognition of some considerable cheek and a domain that fairly jumps off a referral log I'm happy to throw a link your way, and will be equally happy to make it a permanent one -- should the future bring me a clue as to what you do.

Ex Parte, the Harvard Law School Federalist Society's blog, and Captain Indignant ("...one excitable law student among many, decrying the injustices of stolen elections and mandatory minimum sentencing laws. But observe the fresh-faced young man with the German car carefully the next time he visits your municipal office: if he delivers a well-polished diatribe on the collapse of the correct English third-person singular and then glances about furtively, you should check his trunk for a telltale pair of red calf-high boots") come my way via Howard, who also has inspired D.C. appellate attorney Gary O'Connor ("not related to Sandra D.") to blog about statutory construction and "disseminate trivia about the pre-1789 English common law." (And you thought the Know-It-All Edition was a toughie.)

From The Blawg Ring:

a German attorney who answers to Simon if I'm not mistaken;

a recent admit-T to the MidWestern University College of Law;

a "Catholic home schooling mom/lawyer/journalist," Amy Kropp;

a young government appellate and environmental lawyer, Stephanie Tai, whose views are not attributable to the United States (judging by Stephanie's "Selected Publications" I want her on my Trivial Pursuit team too, along with Gary O'Connor, and of course Captain Indignant for discrete consultations on the finer points of grammar);

a self-described random, female first year attorney; and

Yale law student Steven Wu.

From Ernie's Law Blogs Outline:

Bob Ambrogi, a lawyer, writer and filterer of law oriented Web resources; and

David Goldman and his kfsource law librarian's weblog. David is the Head Librarian in the Boston office of a New York-based law firm.

Do be sure to drop me a line if you are, or apprehend, a blogger-at-law. The Blawg Patrol never sleeps.