Today is this weblog's official one-year anniversary. Notes from the (Legal) Underground began on January 1, 2004, with three posts. As I recall, I was enthusiastic to be back in the blogging game after starting and abandoning some blogger.com sites long before. My first post--titled "EasyMusicDownload.com = Scam!"--was about music downloading and, in particular, a site I had learned was a rip-off. Due to the magic of search engines, that first post still gets a lot of hits, and had a comment as recently as this Monday.
The two other posts on this weblog's first day, both about tort reform, also continue to have relevance today, especially considering the news this week that President Bush will give a major tort-reform speech next Wednesday practically in my law firm's back yard. These two posts were titled "Bad Medicine" and "Who'd Defend Class Actions?" and were precursors to what later became the popular "tort reform" category.
My first "weekly report" didn't show up until January 16. Like the previous two tort-reform posts, it was a reaction to the bad press about Madison County, Illinois, that had seemed to ratchet up in 2003 about the time of the Philip Morris judgment. At present, this bad press still hasn't stopped or even slowed down, possibly as a result of pressure by tort-reform organizations that are mostly funded by large corporations like Philip Morris.
What is going to stop, however, are these weekly reports. This one, in fact, will be the last in the series. Although some readers report that they like to read about my practice, it has been very difficult to write about on a weekly basis, mostly because it requires me to mention other lawyers who probably don't want to appear on this weblog. Take this week for example. I can tell you that on Thursday, I spent most of the day with five other lawyers in depositions. We started and finished five witnesses. While I could fashion this experience into some point about the practice of law--e.g., that we moved quickly through the depositions, that there was no fighting among the lawyers, and that in Southern Illinois on that day, civility-in-litigation was in good shape--it would all seem rather dry without also writing about the entertaining personalities of the other lawyers, which I don't have permission to do.
After today, I'll continue to write about my law practice from time to time, but I'm not going to force myself to do it each week. It means the weekly-report feature will be officially retired, to be replaced on Saturdays with a new recurring post--probably, a weekly look at a non-legal weblog that I like.
As for the President's speech, which is going to take place in Collinsville, I'd like to be there but I don't think I can get a ticket. Reportedly, there are about 600, which are being handed out to doctors and officials of the Republican party. If anyone knows a source or has an extra ticket, please send an e-mail. I promise a series of respectful (though, perhaps, slightly gonzo) posts.
A post on New Year's Day. You really are an uberblogger. Happy New Year, Evan, and Notes.
Posted by: Mike | January 01, 2005 at 01:39 PM