Arbitration & Mediation

We Don't Need No Stinkin' Blawg 100: Great Blogs in the Year 2008

By Victoria Pynchon

No, I did not make the ABA's Blawg 100 this year, but my good online buddy, the brilliant and energetic Susan Cartier Liebel of Build a Solo Practice and Solo Practice University did.  Here's just one of the many reasons Susan has the following she does.  She's ridiculously generous.  Rather than resting on her Blawg 100 laurels, she asks her blogfriends to come along for the ride.   After posting her own Top 10 (in which Susan kindly included Settle It Now) she challenged the rest of us to

create a list of recommendations of those blogs you believe others should learn about and publicize on your own blog.  Let's take the idea behind the ABA 100 and expand it.  Let's make December of every year the month we introduce our readers to new blogs of note. Let's give everyone who blogs for education or love of writing and who does so with consistency and quality a pat on the back for a job well done. 

Here's Susan's list:

Jordan Furlong - Law21 Chuck Newton - Third Wave Blog  Marc Randazza - The Legal Satyricon Blog  Enrico Schaefer - The Greatest American Lawyer Grants Griffths - Home Office Lawyer, Home Office Warrior and Blog for Profit A Public Defender PTLawMom Carolyn Elefant - MyShingle  Stephanie West Allen - IdealawgDawn Elaine Bowie - Maryland Father's Rights 

And here is my own:

Blawg Review, which every week delivers to your virtual doorstep the best posts in the legal blogosphere.  BlawgReview is edited by (the currently D-pressed D-listed) anonymous Ed. whose wit and perspicacity has made Blawg Review the place for Blawg-gregation. This year, you'll see that nearly a quarter of the 100 Top ABA Blawgs hosted Blawg Review.   The test of a great blog is not how it powers itself, but how it empowers its readers.  That's why I'm giving Blawg Review the No. 1 spot in my own top 10 list here. (like the nice little gold statue, Ed?  - "Oh my goodness, it's heavy!")

My new favorite ADR Blog Settlement Perspectives offers unparalleled "street" advice about how to do best that which every litigator will do most -- settle the darn thing!  Written by the delightful and charming John DeGroote, Chief Litigation Counsel since 2000 for BearingPoint, Inc., f/k/a KPMG Consulting, Inc., Settlement Perspectives routinely hits the post out of Blawg Park.  If  you aren't now subscribed to it, take my advice and hit the RSS feed RIGHT NOW!

I am a huge Adam's Drafting fan because I spent the vast majority of my litigation career parsing the difference between words like "sudden" and "quick" and because my first legal research assignment back in 1976 was to inform the senior litigation partner at the unlamented Arthur, Dry & Kalish what the word "all" meant. So I can't help but get a little thrill out of posts with titles like -  Enumerated Clauses - When the Trunk is Too Short for the Branch.  If Ken Adams had his way, there wouldn't be a single commercial litigator working today on any case requiring my skills -- contract interpretation and application.  Damn you, Ken Adams!  If you remember how to diagram a sentence, Adam's Drafting is your new best friend.  

In collaboration with Jeffrey M Schwartz, M.D., Stephanie West Allen (one of my "Human Factor" co-columnists at The Complete Lawyer) brings the science of the brain together with the work of the law in Brains on Purpose.  How could you skip a post with a title like Jell-O without whipped cream?  Rhumba without rhythm?  A joke without a punch line?  Mediation without metaphor?  The M.D. after Schwartz's name and J.D. after Stephanie's means this is the real deal and not some new age misapplication of science to law.  Cutting edge.  Enough said.

For the fashionista IP lawyer, there is Counterfeit Chic, a model of legal style, wit, grace, and depth of analysis.  Smart and fun, CC is written by the brilliant, eclectic and ridiculously accomplished Law Professor Susan Scafidi whose interest in fashion came out of the closet before I knew what "RSS feed" meant.  And don't miss the must-read IP book of the 21st century, Professor Scafidi's Who Owns Culture.

My final five are the blogs that keep me working, thinking and sometimes eating -- mediator blah blah (laughing) the Mediation Channel (living), Tammy Lenski (Mediator Tech - eating - and Conflict Zen - breathing) and ADR Prof Blog (thinking).  If you have friends and family, let alone legal disputes, these ADR blogs are all a must on your own personal Top Blawg list (and with this post I hereby grant Tammy Lenski an honorary law degree)

And those of you who haven't yet drunk deeply of the Twitter KoolAid, dive right in @vpynchon.

Full post as published by Settle It Now Negotiation Blog on December 04, 2008 (boomark / email).