It is with the greatest of pleasure that I send these enthusiastic, if belated, First Anniversary greetings to Professor Martin Grace and his RiskProf weblog. Martin should be read regularly by anyone interested in risk and insurance topics, such as medical malpractice and tort reform.
He is also your one-stop shop for cogent analysis of coconut risks. [More here. And Ted Frank provides more nutty details today at Overlawyered.]
Now available in the multimedia section at Insurance Journal: "Blogging Insurance Law," a streaming audio interview with Decs & Excs writer/editor George M. Wallace (or, as I often refer to him, "me"). Direct link here.
The discussion with reporter Kevin O'Reilly covers the creation and reasons behind this weblog, legal weblogs in general and other online insurance-related resources, and some general comments on California law and the current politics of insurance. Notably missing: any remarks on the current investigations of large insurance brokers, which were first announced a few days after the interview was recorded. (The Internet moves fast, and life keeps moving faster.)
UPDATE (10/31/04): Thanks to Martin Grace and David Giacalone for their links to this piece.
Thanks as well to the anonymous (and hitherto unknown to me) Feedmelegal (webfeeds, weblogs and the legal profession), who has some interesting thoughts on What This All Means vis-à-vis attorneys and their use of weblogs and other online outlets, and who remarks in passing:
Feedmelegal doesn’t know Mr. Wallace from a bar of soap, but having listened to the interview, one gets the impression that he’s an amiable person who knows his subject matter.
Not a half bad unsolicited testimonial, that. Can a bar of soap blush?
The decision is somewhat off topic for this weblog, so I have posted initial impressions of the California Supreme Court's opinion today in the San Francisco gay marriage case at the more wide-ranging A Fool in the Forest.
Many thanks to Professor Bainbridge for his kind triple quadruple-link to this weblog. As a UCLA Law alumnus myself (albeit from a long-ago time before Professors Bainbridge or Volokh appeared on the faculty), this is a benefit I particularly relish.
If you came here via some other route, and you don't already include him as a regular stop on your weblog rounds, I firmly commend the good professor to your attention.
Thanks are due to a variety of weblogs for linking the preceding discussions (here and here) of the Kerry-Edwards medical malpractice package, among them:
♣ Martin Grace at a tort et a travers ("A blog about the economics of tort reform, liability law et al." - now linked on the sidebar [link updated 8/27]).
♣ A gratifying number of blogging doctors and med students, including the previously mentioned Medpundit, www.romanvenable.net: Clark's Weblog, and the mysterious Dr. No's Vertical Mattress.
Professor Bainbridge has kindly linked both Decs & Excs and my other more personal and idiosyncratic site, for which he has my thanks, and a place among the links to your right.
Incidental note: this is the 101st Decs & Excs post since launching the site in early August. Thank you to all our visitors, and thanks to the Courts of the State of California for providing a steady stream of fresh material.
Carolyn Elefant of My Shingle and Jerry Lawson of Netlawblog are combining forces today (Nov. 15) for a presentation to the Maryland State Bar's Solo Conference entitled: "What Can Weblogs do For Solos and Small Law Firms?"
Rather than succumb to the dubious temptations of PowerPoint, Carolyn has compiled her materials . . . as a weblog! Clever, appropriate and informative.
The elusive Jack Cliente, who is suspiciously never seen in the same room with David Giacalone, has posted a last minute addition to David's farewell at ethicalEsq?:, including this sound bit advice to me and to all my fellow toilers in the fields of the law:
Don't send e-flowers to honor ethicalEsq?, but actively work for the consumer of legal services both out in the real world, and through the power of weblogs:(1) help make bar associations at the local and state level client-oriented, instead of guild-oriented (e.g., improving the Discipline System would be a great place to start);
(2) harness the power of the web to make the self-help-law revolution a reality, and
(3) with or without new laws or ethical rules, get more information to consumers about their rights and options -- with enough information, consumers can create their own powerful competitive forces for innovation, improved services, lower prices.
Words to live by, and a worthy goal toward which to strive.
[Cross-posted to A Fool in the Forest.]
David Giacalone has, sadly, concluded that he must end or suspend his invaluable web journal -- he swore off the term "blog" for reasons first stated here and here -- ethicalEsq?
I could praise David as "tireless," but that would be almost exactly wrong: his reluctant retirement from the field is driven largely by Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. The ailment has, if anything, served to focus his mind and pen wonderfully, and the accumulated posts at his site (which will remain available for the foreseeable future) contain a wealth of cogent and often wry observation on his topic of choice: the need for lawyers to maintain their focus on doing right by their clients and doing so in a fundamentally honest and honorable way. This topic is especially relevant to me, as an attorney, but this world is so awash in lawyers and it is so hard to avoid us at one time or another in one's life that the subject is always timely and always an important one even (particularly?) for non-lawyers.
David represents much of what is best in this medium and in our shared profession. Go, read, browse his archive and profit from the treasures therein.
[Cross-posted to A Fool in the Forest.]
A review of the referrer log reveals that Declarations and Exclusions has been mentioned and/or added to the blogrolls at Politics & Law, a new blog with a self-descriptive name run by Jeremy Kissel, and at the blog of New Orleans attorney -- and inspiration to lawyer/bloggers everywhere -- Ernest Svenson, better known as Ernie the Attorney. Thank you, gentlemen.
