'Big Law' Blogging
Christoper Smith, knowledge management guru with A Rilly Big Law Firm (which he doesn't mention on his site, so I'm not "outing" him here 'less he says it's ok), has a blog, and gets how blogging has myriad potential uses in the legal field. Coolness.

Some Blimps
This thing is right outside my window. Wonder if the rest of Los Angeles is busy plugging "rolling stones yellow blimp" into Google?

Library Lights On, Doors Open - For Now
Earlier this week, Kevin Livingston had a story in The Recorder [via Law.com], about a measure pending in the California legislature (AB 2648) that would have removed state funds presently footing the bill for county law library facilities (including rent, utilities and furniture). Thanks to the protests of law librarians, lawyers and judges from around the state, the bill has been amended to keep the funding in place, with a proviso that counties may review facilities expenses to ensure they are "necessary." Woe to the hapless public servant who fails to look before s/he bean-counts, however. As Michael Moore's publisher can attest, you simply do not mess with the librarians; you fall to your knees as rapidly as possible and worship them [via Jenny]!

Blog Appeal
I heard last night from Howard Bashman, who heads the appellate group at Buchanan Ingersoll - and has a blog. Howard writes an appellate practitioner column, and observes that "[a]ppellate lawyers usually labor in obscurity, but the Internet no longer makes that as easy as it once was." True enough - through Howard we now can keep up with a fellow who practices before the Supreme Court and lives to tell the tale. (He also notes with alacrity that Bag and Baggage is not "totally devoted" to appellate law. Heh.)

Public Disputes
In addition to my interest in the development of the law around hyperlinks, there was something else I found fascinating about the Dallas Morning News/Barking Dogs exchange, below: that you and I know about it. Litigants and would-be litigants swap correspondence like this all the time, but usually the only people paying attention are the parties, their attorneys and maybe ultimately a court. When attorneys begin to realize that, thanks to the Internet, their dispute-related correspondence may have a broader audience than they thought - even for writings that, unlike legal pleadings, are not part of the public record - this could have a dramatic, and positive, effect on the tenor and content of those missives.

[Later: Ernest was kind enough to email that he picked this up on LawMeme. He's rightly skeptical: people with high-profile cases already try them in the media, and the blogosphere just broadens the potential outlets and audience. I let him know my thought was that more potential exposure=more accountability=less vitriol and more careful research and reasoning. Hopefully.]