After we had agreed on the photo and the title, I had only one day left to actually do my research and write my article. With my deadline looming, I decided to start at the beginning. I wanted to open with this sentence: "The Oxford English Dictionary defines blawg as…" but there was no listing in the Oxford English Dictionary for blawg. So I need a new introduction to this article. I'll be sure to post an update when I come up with a good one.
This week in blogdom, the writer behind Opinionistas, one of the most celebrated law blogs, outed herself, revealing her true identity to readers. Much to the consternation of many of her regular readers who insisted she was actually a 50-year-old man, she is actually Melissa Lafsky, a 27-year-old former associate at Littler Mendelson. Lafsky's irreverent blog takes a humorous look at her climb from paralegal to junior associate. Following in the footsteps of Jeremy Blachman and David Lat, the bloggers behind Jeremy's Weblog and Underneath Their Robes, respectively, Lafsky attained anonymous notoriety as a disgruntled attorney and is now ditching the legal profession to pursue a writing career. She has announced plans to pen a novel based on the characters that populate her blog.
The thrill of an anonymous blogger revealing his/her identity is usually a bit of a letdown. All the elements of high drama are at play when a blogger is publicly unmasked, but it's generally anticlimactic. Based on the strength of her daily on-target observations about big-firm life, I have no doubt that Lefsky will encounter success as a writer. Her revelation was a something of a disappointment, but she did look cute in her picture.
Other stories that had bloggers buzzing were the Samuel Alito confirmation hearings, the most recent Supreme Court rulings, and, of course, the premiere of American Idol. I could give a review of other bloggers' reviews of the new season of American Idol, but it would be like looking into a mirror that's facing another mirror, gazing at yourself looking at yourself into infinity. Didn't I just blow your mind?
While the Alito hearings have been boring even by C-SPAN standards, the official, yet fictional, blog of Samuel Alito takes a satirical look at the jurist. If only the real Alito were as amusing as the fake Alito on The Right Honorable Samuel A. Alito, Jr. blog (which reminds us that the A stands for Awesome). Almost just as funny is the straight-laced, blow-by-blow commentary of the hearings offered at SCOTUSblog.
Of course, the gold standard in hardhitting bloggery is, and probably shall remain, The Volokh Conspiracy, founded by UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh. Volokh's staff has been generally dead-on in their appraisal of new Supreme Court developments this week. Like the majority of attorneys in the legal blogosphere, Volokh and his crew lean to the right politically, but usually manage to bring a common-sense approach to their editorials. Volokh is also rather fair and balanced. Check out his entry from January 18 for a really insightful discussion about the UCLAProfs website, which delves into an examination of conservative rhetoric.
Another big deal from the past couple of days is the subject of that Oprah Book Club guy who faked his memoirs. James Frey's nonfiction account of his own struggle with drug addiction was found out to be full of factual inaccuracies, as revealed by The Smoking Gun. Overlawyered offered a startling assessment of what might happen if the publishers of Frey's book are faced with a frivolous class action lawsuit. Will every reader nationwide be entitled to a full refund plus punitive damages? Overlawyered takes a really stark look at America's litigious culture, which is usually pretty fascinating.
An interesting debate traversing several legal blogs this week was started on LawCulture. Someone started their tirade with a quote from 1936 that said, "There are two things wrong with almost all legal writing. One is its style. The other is its content." The blogger went on to claim that law review was pretentious and boring (guilty, Your Honor), that books and magazines were more valid forms of scholarship, and that even blogs have greater scholastic merit than Articles (with a capital A). The offending blog was shrugged off at Prawfsblawg, a blog written by a group of law professors, but Professor James Edward Maule, on his blog MauledAgain, used the law review debate to scrutinize the self-serving process by which law review benefits a law school's reputation. He argues that blogs can bring an organization publicity but not prestige.
Three or four years ago, the majority of bloggers may have been 40-year-old virgins quoting Monty Python skits in their parents' basements. Today, the blogoscape is a diverse tapestry of students, professors, executives, stoners, and grandparents. MySpace Moms are the new Soccer Moms. Corporate America has begun to embrace blogging as a powerful communication tool. This week, Wired GC examined a situation in which a major company was forced to rethink its corporate blogging policy when a blogger disagreed with the company. When Chinese blogger An Ti decried the firing of the editor of the Beijing News, 100 journalists went on strike to show solidarity. Microsoft, owner of MSN networks, where An Ti's blog was hosted, removed his page, in compliance with strict Chinese federal law. Wired GC provides a pretty cool analysis of the issue from a corporate legal standpoint and then points readers to other blogs with a more political perspective on the matter.
The whole Chinese blog debate got me wondering if LawCrossing can censor my weekly column. Just as a test, I'm going to list a few of my favorite profanities below.
Those are all the curse words I can think of. I hope you enjoyed reading them as much as I did typing them. Until next week…
Jeff is a writer from Los Angeles, CA. Currently, he is the moderator of the message boards at Judged.com, the largest insider source of law firm information.
On LawCrossing it is very easy to search the jobs. This is definitely the most user friendly website. David
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