Although we fell just short of the votes we needed in the ABA Journal contest, we truly appreciate the time and trouble taken by our supporters as well as the kind things said about us by other sites (catalogued in the post just below this one). Congratulations to QuizLaw, which has won a big and loyal readership by staying on top of offbeat news stories about the law in a consistently lively style.
Archive for 2008
Help us win the ABA contest (and ruin someone’s day…)
The ABA Journal’s contest for best general legal weblog ends momentarily (Wed., Jan. 2) and as of this writing we’re still lagging a mere 50 or so votes behind the front-runner, not an impossible margin you’d think to overtake in a last-minute surge. Unfortunately, we’ve more or less run out of winning tactics that wouldn’t mire us in an embarrassing degree of groveling, nagging, cheating, conniving, etc.
Quite a few folks associated with the American Bar Association have been open-minded and even friendly toward Overlawyered over the years, but we have reason to believe that some others high up in that organization regard us as the web equivalent of hot buttered death. Who can deny that it would be amusing to tick off that second group by having Overlawyered win the ABA’s own contest? Perhaps readers in comments can suggest vote-winning techniques we haven’t thought of. (Beg Michelle Malkin and Glenn Reynolds to send their readers to cast ballots for us?). Okay, here’s one: recommend that your readers vote for us, and we’ll give you a grateful shout-out (within reason) in this column.
P.S. Thanks to Caleb Brown, who does the Cato Institute’s podcast series, for filling in over the holidays. Check out his site Catallaxy.net. And stay tuned for another guestblogger we expect to be joining us in the not too distant future.
[Bumped Wednesday morning for continued prominence. First we pulled to within a dozen votes of QuizLaw, it seems, and now (around midnight EST) they’re back ahead by 40.]
And: a most grateful thanks for the boost to:
- Larry Ribstein (Ideoblog);
- Sam Munson (Commentary mag’s Contentions);
- Carter Wood (NAM Shop Floor);
- Ron Coleman guesting at Dean Esmay’s and also at his own site, Likelihood of Confusion;
- Hans Bader (Competitive Enterprise Institute’s Open Market);
- Eugene Volokh (Volokh Conspiracy);
- Alan Lange (Mississippi’s Y’All Politics);
- David Rossmiller (Insurance Coverage Blog);
- Dave Zincavage (Never Yet Melted);
- Tom Kirkendall (Houston’s Clear Thinkers);
- Not endorsements, exactly, but we won’t quibble: Angela Gunn (USA Today “TechSpace”), Robert Ambrogi (LawSites), and David Lat (Above the Law);
- Sean Higgins (JeremyLott.net);
- Point of Law (wait a minute, that’s me).
Fewer lawyers in Virginia legislature
Glenn Lewis, president of the Virginia Bar Association, thinks it’s a bad thing that there are only 29 lawyers in the commonwealth’s 100-member House of Delegates (and 16 in its 40-member Senate). In the “President’s Page” column of the association’s magazine, the VBA News Journal, he recently argued that the Old Dominion suffers from “a dearth of lawyer-legislators” to which he attributes such ills as “wrong-minded analyses” as well as shortcomings in drafting. He believes lawyers should hold at least half the seats in the legislature. Despite a marked decline in its percentage of lawyer/legislators, Virginia still well exceeds the national average of 17 percent. (Laurence Hammack, “Fewer lawyers make Virginia’s laws”, Roanoke Times, Dec. 30).
Of course, one possibility is that lawyers do on average bring with them a superior skill set on issues of legislation and governance, but that the voting public no longer trusts the independence of their judgment and their allegiance to the general good as it once did, fearing that they will instead advance the interest of organized factions, perhaps including the self-interest of the legal profession itself.
War is peace, freedom is slavery, and trial lawyer earmarks are “consumer-friendly”
The Consumerist blog is supposed to be a pro-consumer blog, but it’s amazing how often their political agenda is really a trial-lawyer agenda that hurts consumers. Many of the 2007 bills Carey Greenberg highlights as consumer-friendly are quite the opposite:
- H.R. 3010: Arbitration Fairness Act of 2007
What It Does: Raises costs to and reduces choices for consumers and lowers employee wages by forcing consumers and employees to pass up the benefits of mandatory arbitration, whether they wish to or not. More at Overlawyered, and on SSRN.
Status: Hearings held in both the House and Senate. Likely to be vetoed if passed.