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Six LexBlog Network publications featured in ABA Blawg 100

December 1, 2010

The legal blogosphere is astir with the release of the annual ABA Journal Blawg 100, a selection of the best legal blogs by the Journal‘s editors. Of the 100 blogs selected from the ABA’s directory of more than 3,000 “blawgs,” six publications on The LexBlog Network made the final cut. From the six chosen, four are multiple time award-winners.

The six winners come from a wide range range of subjects and locations. They are as follows:

“As a repeat award winner I find it even more gratifying this year because I think it represents some consistency and that’s tough to come by on a blog,” said Dan Schwartz, author of the Connecticut Employment Law Blog. This is the second time the blog has made the ABA Blawg 100, with the first nomination coming last year.

“Blogs come and go and we’ve seen many that have burned out,” Schwartz said. “I’m very proud to have kept it going and to have maintained a quality that is recognized by others.”

Schwartz was spot-on in his observation as ABA Journal Editor and Publisher Ed Adams noted that the ABA Blawg 100 sees about a 50 percent turnover each year.

“Some blogs will come on the scene and be terrific and others will kind of lose interest on part of their authors,” said Adams, “so we have some turnover every year.”

That said, with the constant turnover comes a continual improvement in the content put forth by the nation’s blogging attorneys.

“I think the quality of blogs is continuing to improve,” said Molly McDonough, the ABA Journal’s deputy managing editor. “Each year, we’re seeing better and better blogs. Better content, more thoughtful analysis, more sophisticated posts, less digesting and more original posts, thoughts and contributions.”

Even with the constant turnover, the quality of some blogs holds strong year after year. Dan Harris’ China Law Blog has been nominated to the ABA Blawg 100 every year since the list’s inception in 2007.

“If you look at the hundred blogs, there are a lot of really good blogs on there, there really are. I’m hugely impressed,” Harris said.” The reason I know is that, on my reader, a number of them are showing up, meaning that these are blogs that I read because they’re really good, not because they have anything to do with China.”

“I think the ABA Journal has done a good job because all the ones that I know that made it, I think deserved to make it,” Harris said. “There are a lot of really good blogs out there that have been out for a long time that people really rely on now.”

While Harris’ own blog fits that description quite well, there are also other ABA Blawg 100 nominees and LexBlog Network publications that fit that mold.

MarlerBlog, the flagship of the Marler Clark Network and go-to resource on food safety and foodborne illness outbreaks, first began consistently publishing content way back in 2003. This is the second nomination for the blog, which is authored by Bill Marler.

Not all nominated blogs though have been around forever. Philip Thomas’ Mississippi Litigation Review earned its first ABA Blawg 100 nomination this year after launching on The LexBlog Network in January of 2009. This past year, he did an exceptional job covering the legal fallout from the BP oil spill.

In his own words: “Thank you to everyone who reads this blog. I feel a bit like Steve Martin as Navin Johnson in The Jerk when he found out that his name was in the phone book.

As is the nature of blogging, great content can come from anywhere and anyone. While Philip Thomas is a solo attorney practicing in Mississippi, the ABA Blawg 100 also features Russell Jackson—a New York attorney and partner at Skadden, one of the largest law firms in the world.

Like MS Litigation Review, this is also the first nomination in the ABA Blawg 100 for Russell Jackson’s Consumer Class Actions & Mass Torts.

And finally, we have Real Lawyers Have Blogs, LexBlog’s own publication. This is the third nomination for RLHB.

We look forward to using this blog to continue to highlight the great content put out on The LexBlog Network and will shoot to highlight even more than six nominations next year.

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