Inside Legal Blogs

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Inside Legal Blogs [By Jeff] Each week, I am charged with the task of compiling a list of the best and the worst of the Internet’s legal blogs. I feed this list into a large computer, which was designed by NASA and is known as Deep Blog. The computer processes the information into a refined database of the week’s most noteworthy blogs. I take this database and travel deep into the Himalayas, where I seek the counsel of a wise old man who lives atop the treacherous mountainscape. Armed with the advice of the learned sage, I prepare this column on the latest law blog news for LawCrossing.

As of late, the hot-button word in the law

Carrol replied that all bloggers link to other

Lay and former executive Jeffrey Skilling

blogosphere is metadata. It’s all over the big

blogs and that it is a fixture of blogdom.

deliberately mislead the public about Enron’s

law blogs, but the definitive post about it comes

finances.

from Jim Calloway’s Law Practice Tips Blog.

I’m going to have to side with O’Keefe and

Apparently all those little blinking, beeping

Carrol on this issue. I was once in a similar

While the Business Law Economics Society

ones and zeroes of computer language mean

situation, where I faced imprisonment and fines

blog Conglomerate predicts full acquittals for

something, and there are some people who

of up to $500,000 for broadcasting football

at least one of the defendants, Prawfsblawg,

can actually make heads or tails of it. Every

games without express written permission

a consortium of law school professors, is

electronic document is filled with encrypted

from the NFL. Although in that analogy, I guess

predicting that the trial will suck. The real bad

data, much like a Three Musketeers bar is

the NFL would be the bloggers, and I would be

guys have already copped pleas and nobody

packed with delicious nougat. When you send

USA Law. So I guess I don’t know what to think.

really understands Enron anyway, argues

a text file, the recipient can open the file’s

I just don’t want to go to jail.

Prawfblawg. The complexity of the crimes in

properties and view its revision history. This

question could lead to a confused jury. Who

poses a major problem during the discovery

Last week, I forecasted that the Enron trial

process, wherein opposing counsel may access

would be better than the O.J. and Michael

things that were deliberately redacted from

Jackson trials mashed together and slathered

The Enron trial has taken a backseat to

electronic files.

with a creamy sauce of Bush v. Gore. I hate

the big news story of the past few weeks,

to admit it, but I was wrong. It’s even better

those cartoons that caused mass rioting and

The Florida Bar’s Board of Governors declared

than that! The Houston Chronicle’s Enron

violence abroad. I am speaking, of course,

metadata mining to be unethical. Tech Law

TrialWatch blog is offering hourly updates on

about Garfield. His passion for lasagna has

consultant Dennis Kennedy finds the Florida

the happenings in the courtroom. Quite frankly,

caused uproarious bouts of chaotic laughter

Bar’s determination to limit a burgeoning

it’s fascinating. Highlights include former

worldwide. Actually, the real story is the

technological area baffling. The PDF for

executive Ken Lay offering his handkerchief

Danish newspapers that printed and reprinted

Lawyers blog says the decision sounds like

to his attorney, Daniel Petrocelli, an audio

anti-Muslim cartoons under the banner of

something from The Onion. I’ll admit I’d never

recording of Lay saying the word “a-hole,”

free speech, sparking widespread and deadly

heard of metadata before, but neither had the

and Judge Sim Lake revealing that the jury

protests. While the story has received a lot of

Florida Bar’s Board of Governors. That doesn’t

had tacos for breakfast. That’s right, tacos for

attention in the law blogosphere, the analysis

mean I’m not techno-savvy, however. I was just

breakfast!

from American law-minded bloggers has been

too busy trying to set the clock on my VCR. Do people still use VCRs?

cares? More tacos, please.

a little weak, as pointed out at Dawg’s Blawg, a The trial has actually gotten off to a painfully

Canadian law blog. That is understandable. At

slow start, which is hardly surprising for a

the core of the debate is a lesser-of-two-evils

The law blog fracas of the week took place over

white-collar trial involving financial fraud. So

argument over racism vs. censorship. Ann

USA Law, a blog portal that publishes several

far, the prosecution has spent a lot of time on

Althouse takes the middle-of-the-road position

legal-themed Web logs. Kevin O’Keefe of

direct examination of former Enron investor

that the rioters ought to argue against the

LexBlog cried foul over USA Law’s publishing

relations chief Mark Koenig. According to

ideas behind the cartoons rather than endorse

his content without permission. He was joined

Houston attorney Tom Kirkendall of Houston’s

the suppression of speech.

by Dennis Kennedy, who claimed USA Law had

Clear Thinkers blog, this strategy backfired,

implied that he endorsed the blog network by

as the defense got Koenig to admit in cross-

The latest development in the story reveals

including his material. USA Law editor Nick

examination that he wasn’t really sure if

that when the cartoons were dispersed

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INSIDE LEGAL BLOGS AND CHAT BOARDS INSIDE LEGAL BLOGS AND CHAT BOARDS SPONSORED BY JUDGED SPONSORED BY JUDGED

throughout the Muslim world, additional forged

available for viewing here, is that they are not

law blogs, pondering the tough issues, and

cartoons were added, presumably to fan the

funny at all. I’ll take Hagar the Horrible any

preparing keen and insightful analysis so you

flames of hatred. Blawg God Eugene Volokh

day.

don’t have to.

As new developments in this story and all

Jeff is a writer from Los Angeles, CA.

other matters blogworthy arise, I will keep you

Currently, he is the moderator of the

apprised. I’m out there every day, scouring the

message boards at Judged.com, the largest

has declared a fatwa on whoever added the three new fake cartoons. As someone on the Judged message boards mentioned, the most shocking aspect of the cartoons, which are

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