Law And More

Lead Paint Watchers - We are in The Top 100 Law Blogs

Lead paint watchers, as a community, we did it.

Together, by pooling our gossip, insider info, thoughts, feelings, and comments we got to be one of The Top 100 Law Blogs.  Here's the group that honored us in that way.  It's the Criminal Justice Degrees Guide folks.  And it's Fiona King who notified us that we were in. Since then, the AMERICAN BAR ASSOCIATION LAW JOURNAL has been giving us a lot of exposure on this.

Thank you Lead Paint Watchers and Fiona King [Fionaking75@gmail.com].

Suppose RI Superior Court Judge Michael Silverstein Blogged post-lead paint verdict

U.S. District Judge Nancy Gertner blogs.  Not much, of course, since in addition to her full-time postion in Boston, she travels weekly to my hometown of New Haven, about 90 minutes away.  Here she teaches a course on sentencing at Yale Law School.  But Gertner advocates that more judges should be reaching out digitally.  And some such as 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Richard A. Posner do.  Most, though, remain silent.

That's an anchronism, isn't it. Judges who blog would let us in.  And after a controversial ruling or jury verdict we need to be right there, inside.  Why does the mystique of the judicial system still exist in this era when most other institutions are being forced into transparency?

Okay, blogging judges can't comment directly on the case.  However, by at least telling us in their blog why they can't comment, they step out from behind that Wizard-of-Oz screen.

Suppose, after the Rhode Island lead paint public nuisance jury verdict on February 22, 2006, RI Superior Court Judge Michael Silverstein had started a blog.  His initial post would be that he could not discuss this landmark case.  That would have eliminated the troubling more than six degrees of separation in this litigation. 

My hope: The judiciary will be brought closer to the people.  My prediction: That will be exactly what happens.  In the June 11th THE NEW REPUBLIC, Richard Just defends the blurring of boundaries between the legislative and judicial branch.  He was referring in particular to the California Supreme Court decision allowing gay marriage. Given that CA is a trend-setter, it's likely that more of those kinds of controversial matters will land up with the judges vs. the legislature or voters.  We citizens want in.

I invite Judge Silverstein to launch a blog as we await the ruling of the RI Supreme Court.  It would be useful to understand how he views gag orders on judges, his opinion on the separation of powers, and should non-violent offenders be incarcerated.  That would connect us to the currently very aloof institution of the judiciary.

America's Growing Export: Legal Blog Posts

It's only posts from this blog that are increasingly translated into other languages. The only posts from my communications blog which get translated are the ones dealing with "CSI:Miami" and the only language they're translated into are versions of Spanish.

The lead paint posts are routinely carried in Mandarin.  That's understandable given China's lead problem and the threat of U.S. liability litigation.  But, even less focused posts are now being translated into the languages of Viet Nam, Poland, Latin America, Germany and more.  Late last night, for example, what the folks in Viet Nam were reading was an interview I conducted with a Silicon Valley guru who advised attorneys that no one in their law office will kiss them goodnight. There's more.  That post was ranked number-one on google, out of 1.3 million other posts.

We all know that law is probably going to outpace pop culture as America's top export.  Just about every law firm I deal with, large and small, defense and plaintiff, has an office abroad or is exploring setting up one or is just over there developing new project work.  Germany seems ambivalent about our class-action system but will probably cave in that direction.  France has already instituted a version of that but with what it considers preventatives for the worst of American abuses. The UK seems happy with what they got but, hey, you never know.

Any blogger who wants to boost traffic and google juice should opine on legal matters.  Last holiday weekend the Chinese almost brought my server down.

I'd rather be blogging

Call it the Human Lifeboat Situation.  We scramble to get into that lifeboat.  We cry out a prayer of gratitude once in that lifeboat.  Then we whine about conditions in the lifeboat. 

That's exactly where I am.  I slaved at building this and my other syndicated blog in order to use weblogs as my primary new business development tool.  Goal accomplished.  New business certainly has come in.  This week, in fact, I hooked and reeled in two fat fish.  For about a half year, just those two will feed me, my three cats Jason, Point Pleasant and Carlotta, and the dog I will eventually adopt to fill the hole left by Molly Mittens.  I am grateful.

Now the whine.  I'd rather be blogging.  I have become so embedded in the parallel reality of the blogosphere that I resent breaking away to clientville to take phone calls and do actual assignments. That will pass, of course.  I will be tempted to turn away from the vow of poverty I took in November 2003 so that I could write.   

Then that extreme self-material-neglect became so I could blog.  The game plan, which worked only too well, was to blog so much and so well that I could obtain assignments w/o all that old-line schlepping to professional associations meetings and delivering talks to 20 desperate housewives on how to get published. I didn't figure serious money would come in.

I have a hunch I am going to learn to like the money, again.  That means that I will have to continue to do plenty of client assignments, not just "enough."  That could lead to reduced blogging involvement. 

Existential question: Who does a blogger become when she isn't blogging?

Capitalist answer: A successful business woman.

Perhaps I can live in both the question and the answer.

Investigative Reporting: WaPo/Woodward/Bernstein Model Dead

Sources, credibility, courage, relentlessness, and patience make an investigative reporter, not a well-funded employer like THE WASHINGTON POST or "60 Minutes."  The lone ranger out there like blogger Kathleen Seidel can uncover as much and have the impact of an old-line Woodward and Bernstein.  They, you recall, needed to draw a salary from the media establishment. Also, they needed to be classified as "journalists."

Kathleen Seidel dug and dug around and into the question of whether vaccines cause autism.  Her digging got attention.  Vaccine plaintiff attorney Clifford Shoemaker pulled a Goliah tactic on her with a subpoena for documents.  But, she also got the attention of digital influentials such as Walter Olson who is with the Manhattan Institute and operates legal blogs Overlawyered.com and Pointoflaw. Olson et al. pushed back exactly the way Clay Shirky describes in his book "Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations."

As we bloggers build credibility with readers and develop niche interests - e.g. mine in lead paint - we attract insider information, insightful interpretation of that data, anonymous document drops, and referrals to other "deep throats."  I know.  By the third month of live-blogging the now-infamous Rhode Island lead paint public nuisance trial II, God's Plenty was contacting me by phone, e-mail and even in-person.  They sensed what was taking place was historic and could have monster impacts. Through my blog they wanted to influence that.  They supported both the plaintiff and the defendants Sherwin-Williams, NL Industries, Millennium Holdings and Atlantic Richfield. 

Did some have dark motives, feuds to settle, resentments?  Sure.  But what I learned what that motivation is irrelevant.  All that was relevant was the utility of what I was given. 

Because of the conversational tone of blogs, our posting in real time, our niche focuses - we bloggers are naturals to be drawn into investigative journalism.  What's amazing about this is not that we're defaulting into that role.  What astounds me is that I am hardly "pure."  I earn the lion's share of my living outside journalism.  My taxable income comes from ghostwriting, speechwriting, presentation coaching, marketing communications, and media pitching. 

Perhaps along with the well-funded model of WaPo/Woodward/Bernstein, which I view as dying or dead, is fading the whole rigid notion of journalistic purity.  Reporting on anything and everything seems to be like life: Messy.

Post-RI SC: Readers Preoccupied with RI Trial II

One of the cheapest and trust-worthy intelligence tools is tracking and interpreting the pattern and volume of clicks on blog content.  Post-Rhode Island Supreme Court oral arguments on lead paint those clicks have been on the posts back in mid-trial.  Readers have returned to original blog on which I posted live the whole trial, from opening arguments on November 1, 2005 until the February 22, 2006 verdict.  [Mid-August 2006 I created a stand-alone legal blog in response to a revolt by non-lead paint watchers].

My hunch is that they are re-tracing trial testimony, motions and decisions for two reasons:

• To review the facts that the four RI SC Justices will be analyzing in the next two months. One particular area of interest is Jones Day Mickey Pohl's cross-examination of historian David Rosner.  Pohl represents Sherwin-Williams.

• In anticipation for a RI lead paint trial III.  That is, they don't expect the verdict to be just tossed. They might be guessing what parts of II will stay and what parts dropped, e.g. conspiracy theory about the Lead Industries Association [LIA].

Of course, there is ongoing interest in what transpired at the orals and how the the media, legal experts and business leaders are interpreting all that.  But essentially, I think lead paint watchers have moved on to contemplating on the next move, for both sides. 

DrugandDevicelaw.com - Congratulations on 500 Posts

Our fellow bloggers Mark Herrmann and James Beck have hit the 500 post milestone on DrugandDevicelaw.com.  The theme of the celebratory post is Lord, I'm tired.  I would add: Lord, how I porked up.  Post-RI SC, I am resolved to knock off this  blogging weight and get back my trim girlish figure.

Keep going, Boys.

Providence, RI Court House - LawandMore Still Blocked

Well, the good news is that here in the 8th floor Law Library in the State Court House I can access my own blog lawandmore.typepad.com to post on.  The ongoing bad news is that no one, including myself, can access the blog to read, at least not from this network of computers. 

Walter Olson, who authors both Overlawyered.com and Pointoflaw.com, explained that the blocking might result from key words that get flagged as offensive by the software.   He said that was usually temporary.  I had refrained from using those kinds of terms in posting about the Ohio Attorney General meltdown.  Unfortunately, that didn't do the trick.

The block has a button to click to plead one's cause.  I did just that.

Austism Blogger: All's well that ends well

It's the return of common sense to the legal system.  On Overlawyered.com Walter Olson updates us on the ludicrous saga of the subpoena sent to autism blogger Kathleen Seidel by plaintiff attorney Clifford Shoemaker.

Olson reports, "A federal court in New Hampshire has quashed the subpoena and ordered attorney Clifford Shoemaker to show cause why he should not be subjected to sanctions." Olson helped organize a cyberspace campaign in support of Seidel.

RI State Court's Blocking of Law and More: Software Savvy Walter Olson May Have Explanation

Software-savvy Walter Olson, who publishes Overlawyered.com and Pointoflaw.com, provides a persuasive explanation of why the RI State Court Law Library may be blocking this blog. I contacted Olson last night and here's his response:

"I have had a couple of transient episodes in which some blocking programs excluded Overlawyered.  I think in one case I'd been posting about a sexual harassment case, and in the other about legal issues involving guns.  In both cases the blocking ended when the story in question moved off the front page.

"It is my impression that not only are there many different blocking programs in use, but that the programs may be customized, e.g. one user may set it on 'block' when just one sexually oriented word appears on the page, another may decide that the trigger should be four words."

The answer may then be obvious.  Since THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH broke the alleged sexual harassment story at the Office of the Attorney General, I have been blogging multiple times a day about aspects of that saga.  When, as Olson says, "the story in question moves off the front page" the blocking in the RI state court house might stop.

I want to thank Walter Olson and lead paint watchers who provided possible insight into this issue.  It's a bit of a letdown that this blogging is not all that influential that any powers-that-be would seek to block it.