Two Years Blogging

My birthday just passed, as did the two year anniversary of my blog. Hence, this post will be a reflection piece. I didn't want to do a post just about my blog, and I didn't want to do just another "top 10" blog list, so I'm going to do a little bit of both.

PERSONAL INJURY

As far as personal injury, I have done a few posts on areas that I find particularly interesting, such as construction accident or dram shop litigation. I try to make my posts informative, and responsive to both lawyers and lay readers. There are a few great personal injury blogs out there. Eric Turkewitz' New York Personal Injury Law Blog was one of the first blogs I started reading. He comments on a wide range of topics, from war stories to political commentary, and often about legal ethics. Recently, Eric's blog gained some notoriety for his coverage of Supreme Court Nominee Sonya Sotomayer. John Hochfelder's New York Injury Cases Blog provides coverage of settlements and verdicts, and is incredibly well polished (and often well illustrated). His posts are the type of thing you read and think "I may want to look that up again in the future."

Another blog of note, although not strictly discussing personal injury, is Andrew Lavoot Bluestone's NY Legal Malpractice Blog, which is both helpful for practitioners in this area, and as a tool for learning from others' mistakes. I have represented both plaintiffs and defendants in legal malpractice cases, and they can raise some interesting legal issues. Andrew focuses strictly on legal malpractice, and reviews decisions within this niche. His blog drawn a lot of attention on a few occasions due to litigation; one lawyer sued him because he didn't appreciate that his malpractice was publicized, and another sued for statutory damages claiming that faxes of Andrew's newsletter were unsolicited advertisements (the Court of Appeals found that it was not).

CONSUMER PROTECTION

One of my major interests is consumer protection. It is an incredibly broad field, which lends itself to focusing on sub-issues rather than global ones. It is important from a social standpoint, and I believe it will become an increasingly important part of the legal profession in the future. The Consumer Law and Policy Blog is a long-running consumer blog, which reports on consumer issues from an academic and political perspective. The Consumerist (which was founded by the writers of pop-culture blog Gawker, and later purchased by Consumer Reports), in contrast, takes a more practical approach, and is geared towards warning everyday consumers about scams and how to deal with them.

WRITING

One of my strongest talents is writing, and some of my most well received posts have been on appellate litigation and motion practice. There are a few quality blogs that focus on writing. Notably, Wayne Scheiss's Legal Writing Blog and Raymond Ward's The (New) Legal Writer are both excellent reads for people who love to write. I lump writing with procedure (who knows why), and another blog of honorable mention is the CPLR Blog, which provides useful New York procedural tid-bits.

LONG ISLAND

The internet is the best place for legal news. Main stream print publications put much of their best content online through blogs such as Law.com (which owns the National Law Journal and the New York Law Journal) and Wall Street Journal Law Blog, which offer up-to-the-minute breaking news and commentary. Much of the best legal news, however, is from bloggers who are independent from any mainstream print media. Above the Law bills itself as a legal tabloid, offering both news and gossip; The Volokh Conspiracy is filled with original (often opinionated) content; and Nicole Black's Sui Generis focuses specifically on the New York legal community.

There are not many blogs, however, that specifically focus on Long Island. Long Island Business News provides some coverage of legal news, and Newsday covers many of stories of interest, but neither specifically focus on the law. I have been following the Long Island Bankruptcy Blog lately, but the blog is focused on bankruptcy in general rather than specifically Long Island.

For the last few months, I have done a regular post on legal news around Long Island. After tinkering with the format for a while, my posts spawned a new blog: Long Island Legal News. There isn't much content yet, but I plan to update regularly.

MISC.

Lastly, some of my posts have been more for light-hearted entertainment. I did a post on Harvey Birdman: Attorney-at-Law, and one on Superman. There are a few blogs that take this lighter-side approach, such as Legal Antics (by Nicole Black, who also runs Sui Generis), SayWhat! a humor blog by US District Judge Jerry Buchmeyer, which provides amusing excerpts from trial and deposition testimony. Gerry Spence's Blog is not necessarily meant to be humorous or lighthearted, but it is filled with thought-provokingn musings and commentary.

So, that's my post. A description of my blog, and links to bloggers that comments on similar topics. It is by far not an exhaustive list of blogs, and if anyone has any suggestions of blogs that should be included feel free to leave a comment.