It looks like our on-line legal periodicals, a/k/a law blogs or blawgs, are making themselves known outside of the legal internet circles as several of us were interviewed last month by reporter Brandon Ortiz with the Kentucky Herald Leader in his story Lawyers take legal debates online which was posted today.
I thought that those of you who have not been placed under the reporter's microscope might enjoy reading about some elements behind the story.
Brandon contacted me last month for an interview about the growing development of law blogs within the state, and to show the breadth and diversity of this growing field, he expanded the story to include several other of Kentucky's on-line legal writers who also allowed themselves to undergo the scrutiny of the main stream media. This allowed Brandon to come to our table and get a taste of the diversity in legal "blogging" and writing.
Present at the interview were myself (Michael Stevens - www.KentuckyLawblog.com and www.KyCases.com), Diana Skaggs, and Stan Billingsley. Unfortunately, Ben Cowgill had a previous committment and was not present in person, but present in spirit. I thank Brandon for following up the interview and discussing the ethical issues behind blogging with Ben.
I will confess that I was initially apprehensive when Brandon called me for the interview, and I was thankful he expanded the scope to include the others since there is "strength" in numbers. However, my fears were misplaced as he was not only fair and objective but also articulate and personable. I actually enjoyed myself to the point I was probably listening more to my fellow writers than giving Brandon some journalistic fodder for his story. Oh well.
For those who might not know this, Brandon is the Herald Leader's Supreme Court and "courts" reporter and is the writer behind the Comair Crash stories and others coming out of Lexington. For a list with links of his on-line stories, click here.
I have regularly read his stories on-line (and through my RSS feed) and was pleasantly surprised that the analytical mind behind those stories was not a lawyer! Most impressive. I was amazed by the depth and perception he had of the law.
Being interviewed by the press when you have no "real" control on the outcome is somewhat daunting. Brandon "done good", and I can understand why the lawyers and members of our judiciary hold him in high regard. His respect for the law and justice was evident in his questions and his listening.
Although I am a lawyer who poses as a journalist, I learned from this process that on-line legal writing is more than just timely, quick and responsive, but allows the pen to be truely mightier than the sword. We have our own medium to defend the remarks made, so let us not forget that Brandon entered this foray with some vulnerability of his own as well with the risk that the three interviewees might respond to his remarks on-line. His written word was neither final nor irrebuttable.
For those who read our postings regularly, you know that this project does not exist solely through my efforts. I just seem to be the cook that combines all the fine ingredients provided by other lawyer volunteers. To continue giving credit where credit is due, I thank them again - those who are helping now, and those who have helped in the past. Click here for our "numbers" and our "writers".
Due to constraints on space (and the fact that three lawyers can overload a reporter's notebook in minutes), most of our remarks did not hit the print. Again, the decision digests are not mine and mine alone. We are not devoid of political commentary, but concentrate on that which affects the practice of law. For example, the judicial elections, the merit system investigation, the governor's pardons, the "footnote", the purging of court records, and the crisis of confidence in our courts did not escape our pages. But on the plus side was the fact that lawyers, students, and librarians nationwide have emailed us for legal information and documents that are nearly impossible to obtain unless you are involved in the actual controversey or litigation. When a Columbia law student needed a trial court order for his paper, it was gratifying that an email to my fellow Kentucky lawyers produced a digital copy within the hour (and this is not an isolated case!). I also particularly liked Diana Skaggs' remark that the "blogs" are similar to the office water fountain where we can gather and discuss matters without pressing deadlines and a little less formally.
And as I am writing this post, I just discovered something about this type of writing I never realized so clearly before and that this is more than legal analysis, court commentary, decision digests, and noteworthy news developments, but it is also a rather intimate way of writing. I feel like I am writing each of you a personal letter about something that I feel is important; something that I want to share with a friend; and each of you have taken some time out of your day to care enough to read it. Some even to the point of commenting on line. For this, I THANK YOU.
For some background, I also direct you to some postings by Ben Cowgill at his Legal Ethics Newsletter on the subject of this story and lawyers writing about the law:
- Since when is journalism 'a new game in town' that needs to be regulated?
- Law-related blogs: Following in the footsteps of Thomas Jefferson
And from Diana Skaggs at Divorce Law Journal, is the following:
Brandon's entire story is below the fold, but I would encourage you to click HERE for the on-line post to allow him some credit for increased hits or traffic on this story!
Lawyers take legal debates online
'BLAWGS' GIVE PERIODICAL DISCUSSIONS DAILY PLAY
By Brandon Ortiz
HERALD-LEADER STAFF WRITER
LOUISVILLE - Retired judge Stan Billingsley pores through news accounts daily to find the law behind the story. He's part of a new and growing medium that hopes to fill a gap in news coverage and encourage discussion of the law: legal blogs.
Last week, after studying case law and interviewing the lawyer for the Executive Branch Ethics Commission, Billingsley concluded on news.lawreader.com that the commission has no legal basis to continue legal proceedings against Dan Druen in light of Gov. Ernie Fletcher's pardon of him in the merit hiring investigation.
He's previously defended Chief Justice Joseph Lambert for writing a controversial footnote to a Supreme Court opinion and blasted a Western Kentucky judge for jailing illegal immigrants.
"We look at the law behind the issues," Billingsley said. "We are certainly not partisan in respect to political philosophy, but we do have the driving concept of, 'If you're going to state the law, state it correctly.'"
At least six Kentucky law blogs, or blawgs, have emerged in the last two years, regularly posting digests of court decisions, analyses of statutes and dissections of legal theories. Others are popping up around the country and internationally.
They provide online the kind of in-depth, regular legal analysis usually available only in limited-access media.
Blawggers say they also are motivated by loftier ambitions of improving their profession. Three Kentucky blawggers who were recently interviewed say that what they do is an extension of what civic-minded lawyers have always done: encourage a scholarly discussion of the law.
But now that debate occurs daily rather than in periodicals and journals.
Blawggers have attempted to distinguish themselves from their partisan political counterparts. Louisville personal-injury lawyer Michael Stevens, who publishes http://www.kentuckylawblog.com, recently wrote that he doesn't want to be called a blogger anymore because of the baggage associated with it.
Blogs, short for Web logs, are online diaries or journals that allow readers to respond to and comment on the writer's posts.
Blawgs mostly are geared toward lawyers and not a general audience -- unless, say, you have a strange fascination with the intricacies of divorce law. For that, go to Divorce Law Journal at http://www.louisvilledivorce.typepad.com.
Billingsley started his free blog to drive traffic to his commercial Web site, http://www.lawreader.com, an online law library. It has a search engine for Kentucky's laws and rules of evidence, synopses of appeals court cases and examples of jury instructions, pleadings and other documents commonly filed by attorneys.
"We get the same comment time after time: 'Now I can compete with the big firms,'" Billingsley said. "A single practitioner cannot afford to maintain a big law library."
The Web site saves lawyers time, not to mention inconvenient trips to Frankfort, he said.
The local blawgs are generally light on political commentary, though they do analyze and digest court decisions. They've also defended judges who they say have been criticized unfairly.
"We are doing this for the love of the profession," said Diana Skaggs, who publishes Divorce Law Journal. "We are all aware of the undermining of the public confidence in the judiciary. We see the need for public confidence in our judiciary, and we have an excellent judiciary."
Billingsley defended Lambert last summer for tucking into an unrelated ruling a footnote that said the governor enjoys absolute immunity and may face prosecution only if impeached first. Billingsley disagreed with the footnote but said it's common for judges to comment on legal matters that are not directly related to the case at hand.
The blawggers frequently analyze the law behind major news stories. Billingsley, for example, posted Kentucky cases involving the Bible in the courtroom after a Mississippi jury consulted a Bible while deliberating whether to give the death penalty to a woman who murdered her husband.
Stevens links to court stories across the state -- appeals, court decisions and other law related news such as forums and local bar events. He says his site fills a void left by state bar publications that publish only monthly or quarterly.
"I enjoy thinking about the law, writing about the law and sharing this information with other lawyers," he said.
Blawgs have generated some controversy among those concerned that they constitute lawyer advertising, which is regulated by state bar associations. Lawyers are required to submit advertisements to the Kentucky Bar Association for review and pay a $50 fee, leading to initial fears that blawggers would have to pay $50 per post.
The bar's advertising commission has ruled that is not necessary, but it does require lawyer bloggers to register their "about" pages, which typically contain biographies and links to law firm Web sites.
Robert L. Elliott, a Lexington lawyer who is on the advertising commission, said law blogs "are kind of a new game in town." He said the bar has not yet developed hard rules for how to handle them.
Law blogs are not necessarily lawyer advertising, depending on their content, he said. But Elliott said some blawgs do appear to be nothing more than advertisements, though he declined to point to specific sites.
Lexington lawyer Benjamin Cowgill, who publishes Legal Ethics Newsletter at http://www.legalethics.info, said law blogs have no more ethical issues than lawyer Web sites. Cowgill's site triggered the bar association's review of its advertising regulations.
Cowgill says if Thomas Jefferson were alive today, he'd be a blawgger.
"He would be thrilled to live at a time when it is possible to share information with interested people throughout the world, simply by sitting down at his desk and writing at a keyboard," Cowgill wrote in an e-mail.
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