We are delighted to report that this blog has been selected by the American Bar Association for inclusion in the Blawg 100 for 2012. This is the ABA’s annual listing of what it considers to be the best 100 legal blogs. According to Twitter comment (we have not checked) we are the only blog outside North America to receive the accolade this year.
This year’s list includes some legal blogs that we admire and consult regularly, such as Ken Adam’s Koncision and the China Law Blog, led by Dan Harris, and others that we visit very occasionally, such as Bryan Garner’s Law Prose, and Dennis Crouch’s Patently O. The blog that we consult on a daily basis, IPKat, led by Jeremy Phillips, was selected for the Blawg 100 in 2010 but not this year.
Honorees of the Blawg 100 are entered in a popularity contest, in which the ABA invites members of the public to vote for the blog that they like best. Please consider registering to vote and voting for us here. When voting, find us in the “legal research / writing” category.
To help you make up your minds, we include below some comments that others have made about this blog in the last few months. We are grateful for all of these comments (no, really!)
IPKat is reported to have said that we are his favourite legal blog (other than his own), noting that we are “pedantic, smug, practical and generally right”.
voting for the blawg 100 begins…
Danish Member of the European Parliament, and member of the Pirate Party, Amelia Andersdotter, chided us in a comment on this blog for our “insanely fine-tuned nuance”.
Ken Adams of Koncision, when proposing our inclusion in the Blawg 100, noted that our “interesting and insightful” blog is leavened with “gently offbeat and self-deprecating humor”.
We are really thrilled (but not, we hope, insanely smug) about winning this award and hope it will help us raise the blog’s profile and increase our international readership. Thank you to everyone who proposed us and to everyone who votes for us!
Mr Pettifog
Mark Anderson
Paul Maclennan
Stephen Brett
Victor Warner
IP Draughts 
Hi Mark, I just voted for your blog! It was hard to find becuase it’s in the “legal research/writing” category rather than in the “IP law” category. Best, Gina
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Thanks, Gina. We need every vote we can get!
Congratulations, Mark, on the much deserved recognition.
Thanks for trying, Vance. When I viewed the page with my iPad it didn’t seem to recognise me (previously I registered using a desktop) so there may be a technical loophole there. I didn’t try to reregister!
It’s a question concerning the terms of voting. Many such website polls are conducted under conditions that permit one to vote multiple times (usually just once per day, though). I haven’t seen them called thus, but they might well be termed the “Boston Rules,” after the instructions given by former Mayor James Michael Curley (vote early and often).
Mmmm… I might get our votes into double figures using this technique!
Update: I went back to the page, and your entry is now blocked from receiving my vote (again). I’m afraid you’ll have to scare up multiple voters as well as multiple votes.
How often may one vote?
Vance, is that a question of legal ethics, morality, the ABA’s terms and conditions of use of their website, or technology? If you are a member of the ABA (I am not) you may have more insight into some of these aspects than me! It doesn’t appear to be technically possible to vote more than once for the same blog with the same name.