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Posts That Rocked the Blawg World -- Formerly, the Meme Chose
A couple of days ago, Blawg Review's mystery Editor started this meme that identified the 10 blogs that in Editor's view are "simply the best" -- and asked those chosen to spread the good fortune by naming their own top "meme chose's." Since both My Shingle and Legal Blog Watch were tagged, I'm compelled to participate -- but like my colleague Bob Ambrogi, I don't much like these things. After all, how to choose? What standards to apply? The blogosphere offers an embarrassment of riches.
But there's a more practical problem as well. At least 10 of those that I would have included in my top 10 were already mentioned. So I'm going to cheat a little. Rather than name my top 10 favorite blogs, I'm going to identify a handful of posts or blog features that, in my view, rocked the blawg world with their innovation, passion or honesty. Here goes:
Above the Law David Lat's coverage of the Aaron Charney $15 million lawsuit against Sullivan and Cromwell for discrimination based on sexual orientation. Used to be that both law firm defendants and wronged associates kept these actions hidden under the rug, but Lat has shined a magnifying glass on the suit, uncovering all kinds of juicy tidbits of information. From herein out, associates considering suits against their firms and law firms that are the potential subjects need to reconsider how to handle disputes in the aftermath of this kind of coverage.
Though now defunct, How Appealing's Howard Bashman's feature, Twenty Questions for an Appellate Judge, offered personal insights from federal judges who don't get much intelligent coverage in the press.
Also on inactive status, Sui Generis' Nicole Black's New York Minute was a terrific example of how you can stretch blogging with the personal interaction achieved through video. Actually, Black's blog comes fairly close to being what I consider a "perfect" blog, with the right balance of weekly features, light humor and intelligent commentary and opinion.
New York Personal Injury Lawyer's Eric Turkewitz's coverage of the Flea medical malpractice trial. For those who don't recall, Flea, a pediatrician had been blogging anonymously about a malpractice case that was brought against him -- which settled shortly after Fleas was "outed" at trial. Turkewitz followed the story closely, providing links to Flea's blog, links to news coverage and interviews with some of the attorneys handling the Flea case.
f/k/a David Giacalone's classic and timely blog post The Graying of the Bar that ties together all of the issues associated with the aging of boomer lawyers -- not just mandatory retirement but retaining competency, knowing when (and how) to close a practice -- and others that must be addressed by both older lawyers and the profession at large. It's a post that all of us in the profession, young or old, must read.
Sun Microsystem GC Mike Dillon's post The Way of the Mastodon, predicting the end of Biglaw as we know it unless large firms start changing their ways. Lots of people could have written this type of post, but coming from a GC who works with large firms day to day, Mastodon attracted lots of attention and generated lots of discussion around the blogosphere.
It was a sad day in the blogosphere when one of the first bloggers, Bag and Baggage's Denise Howell, announced that she'd parted ways -- and not entirely voluntarily -- with her firm. Howell's thoughtful, honest and even optimistic (when she could have rightly been bitter) post on her experience, Have Aeron, Will Travel, expressed the complexities of finding that elusive work-life balance in the law.
There are plenty of others that I could add to this list, but I'll stop here. And with that, I consider my obligation to La Meme Chose complete (and thank you to UCL Practitioner Kim Kralowec, who has compiled an amazing body of knowlege at her blog) and Bob Ambrogi for putting me on the list.
Posted by Carolyn Elefant on October 5, 2007 at 05:06 PM | Permalink
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