Five Questions: Tami Cowden of Kummer Kaempfer Bonner Renshaw & Ferrario Law Firm

This week, LexBlog continues with our “Five Questions” feature, where we chat with various bloggers from around the country. Tami Cowden, who I chatted with today, is a founding member of the Appellate Practice Group at Kummer Kaempfer Bonner Renshaw & Ferrario.

Rob La Gatta: There is a lot of litigation going on in Nevada. How do you determine what will make it into the blog?

Tami Cowden: I try to get a blurb of everything that relates to Nevada. So all of the published Nevada Supreme Court opinions, all of the published Ninth Circuit opinions, and a mention of the U.S. Supreme Court opinions as well.

Rob La Gatta: Have you established a schedule for blogging where you require yourself to write a certain number of entries in a sitting?

Tami Cowden: To some extent, it seems like I’m always playing catch up. But, because I know the schedule of when the opinions come out for each of the courts, I can usually anticipate and put aside some time for each time that I know something will be coming out, or when its likely for something to come out. The Nevada Supreme Court’s opinions are issued every Thursday, but there haven’t been any in July at all. I’ve checked, but I haven’t had to review any opinions from that court. And of course, the U.S. Supreme Court opinions are done for a while. So, it’s really just keeping up with the Ninth Circuit opinions, and it’s a very prolific court – they generally have three, four, five opinions every day. They’re the one that keeps me busy.

Rob La Gatta: When not practicing law, you write fiction. Do you think your knack for writing has contributed at all to your ability to crank out multiple blog posts a day?

Tami Cowden: I think so. Actually, I think the experience that helps me the most was probably my time as a staff attorney on the Colorado Court of Appeals, where I kind of had to get over the concept of writers block, [having to] just sit down and write something because there’s a deadline. That’s helped me in fiction, as well.

Rob La Gatta: If you could give one bit of advice to lawyers just starting their own blog, what would it be?

Tami Cowden: Have an idea in advance of what you want the blog to be. I’ve actually altered my style, just over the past few months. Initially I was writing an in-depth discussion of every opinion, and I [found] that that became burdensome…I couldn’t keep up with it very well. So that now I’m really focusing more on writing announcements about each of the opinions; then those opinions that I find of particular interest I might write a little bit more about.

Rob La Gatta: Has there been any response from your readers about this shift?

Tami Cowden: I actually don’t get a lot of comments on my blog, so that’s hard for me to say. I do have people talk to me in person about it, and I haven’t had any specific comment about that change, which has been in about the last 10 days.