From the Detroit Legal News, Nicole Black on Blawging: It's All About the Passion.

Regardless of your goals, there's no point in blogging unless you enjoy the process of writing and have a passion for your subject matter. Otherwise, the blog will fall flat. While it may achieve desired goals of increasing search engine optimization, it will ultimately be uninteresting and will have few regular readers.

The best blogs come from the heart. The lawyer's voice and passion for the subject matter are obvious. The blogger offers his or her opinions without hesitation and isn't afraid to express a minority viewpoint.

A few blogs spring to mind as prime examples of this type of blogging. Some are well known, others less so. But all are great examples of blogs that continually draw readers in and bring them back for more.

Whose blogs are great?  Read on here!

(Thanks for including the Negotiation Law Blog Niki!)

What we do, my friend, is discovery.  

Discovery. 

Saying that discovery is part of litigation practice is like talking about the wet part of the ocean.

How do you know when you're finally finished with legal practice?  When do the heavens open up and angels descend with the news that you've finally done enough and may now go and do that which you truly love? 

It's usually a discovery moment.

For one of my former law partners, it came on the heels of a five page meet and confer letter.  Single spaced.  When my friend's secretary came into her office with the written response, the expression on her face ranged between shock and amusement. 

"You're not really going to send this, are you?"

"Yes, I am.  Let me sign it."

"No no no no no no no.  I can't let you do this."

"Yes you can.  Let me sign it."

"Pleeeezzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz."

"Sign."

Here's the response that struck fear into the heart of an overworked legal secretary: 

Whatever.

And yes.  She sent it.

For those of you who have not yet reached the promised land of Discovery Whatever, I've got very very very good news for you.

The Discovery Referee Speaks!  And she is a Goddess.  Goddess Kathy Gallo to be exact.

Yesterday's post reminds us what we ought to know intuitively during our first deposition - the Court Reporter is the Goddess of the Deposition (my own stories of first encounters with the Sphinx of the Transcript are here)

I know of only one discovery referee who rivals my affection and respect for Kathy -- the brilliant,  persistent and omnipresent Eli ("and your backup argument would be?") Chernow.  Eli swore my dad in as Superior Court Commissioner before I went to law school.  That alone gives him a warm place in my heart.  He also let my step-son (then my paralegal) ask his first deposition questions in an antitrust action that had become so over-heated we needed the wise calm of a discovery umpire to get us from, "could you spell your name for the Court Reporter" to "I have no further questions of this witness."  Only my step-son (now at Irell) and Eli ever did understand the complicated Rand statistical study that underlay the plaintiffs' conspiracy allegations.

The Court Reporter

As Kathy rightly notes - the Court Reporter is the Goddess of the Deposition and don't you go forgetting it.  The Court Reporter is your very own home court advantage or you greatest nemesis.   You think the Sphinx of the Conference Room doesn't talk to her friends, the Discovery Referee, or opposing counsel if you disrespect her?  You think she doesn't have the discretion to transcribe or not transcribe every "um," "uh," and "arrrrrrr, um, uhhhhhh" you mutter as you struggle with the guy who says "yes," "no," "I don't know," and, "I don't understand your question, could you please rephrase it" for hours, even days on end. You think she can't make marking your own documents as exhibits the hell that populated your young adult law school dreamscape?  You think the Court Reporter in incapable of taking revenge?  

Think again.

How Do I Get from My First Admonition to My Final Discovery Motion without Humiliation?

Until a couple of weeks ago, the answer to this question was - you don't.  The only way to learn how to mark an exhibit, how to speak to a court reporter, know whether she actually strikes anything from the record, respond to a foundational objection, how to mark an exhibit without shame, how to respond to the other side's instructions not to answer and how to lead your professional life without yourself becoming a screaming  A**hole, was to first make a complete and utter fool of yourself.  That's how we learn to become lawyers young men and women.

Now that the Goddess of Discovery has arrived on the shores of the blogosphere, however, you might, just might, avoid humiliation and become a lean, mean discovery machine by clicking on Kathy's RSS feeder and reading her posts every single day.

Got it?

Got it!

Now go get 'em champ!

We’re celebrating Mothers Day by posting Blawg Review #263 at the She Negotiates Blog for one obvious and some not so obvious reasons.  The obvious reason is the word “She.”  The not-so-obvious reasons are:  (1) Mother’s Day was a peace and reconciliation movement before it was a holiday; and, (2) peace exists only when we have the political will to seek and the negotiation tools achieve the resolution of conflict.

In addition to the main post, we've also posted Blawg Review #263 on our She Networks, She Succeeds, She Transforms and She Resolves pages (up at the top of the blog).

She’s She Negotiates, the newest blawg on the block, taking the baton from The Public Intellectual’s brilliant Blawg Review #262, and getting ready  to host Blawg Review #263 for Mother’s Day 2010

She negotiates Blawg Review.

In addition to celebrating mothers, we’ll be celebrating all women who negotiate (do you know any who don’t?) posting Blawg Review #263 on all of She Negotiates' pages –  She Networks, She Resolves, She Succeeds and She Transforms, as well as on the She Negotiates posting page.

So if you’re a legal blogger and you have Blawg Review envy, now’s your big chance.  Join She Negotiates to Power Her Dreams (it’s free!) and leave your link at the group “Blawg Review #263.”

The first woman legal blogger who joins She Negotiates to Power Her Dreams and leaves a May 3-week post beginning with the words, she negotiates, she succeeds, she networks, she resolves or she transforms will win a free ticket to the Negotiation for Women Workshop at the Pasadena Women’s City Club on June 10 (7-10 p.m.) with attorney-mediator, arbitrator and negotiation trainer Victoria Pynchon and east-coast business negotiation guru John Tinghitella.

The second woman legal blogger will win a free autographed copy of the book (due out in the very late Spring) A is for A**hole, the Grownups’ ABC’s of Conflict Resolution.

The third woman legal blogger will win a reduced priced month-long online personally tutored She Negotiates! Workshop at Craving Balance ($175 for a course costing $375).  As with the last workshop Victoria Pynchon taught with life-balance coach and trainer Lisa Gates, they guarantee that any woman fully participating in the course will make back its cost within thirty days of taking it or her money back!

So get ready to celebrate the woman who negotiate, network, resolve, succeed, and transform with a nod to mom for Blawg Review #263!

What women are saying about the Craving Balance Negotiation Course:

"I learned more during this hands-on negotiating course than in another higher priced class.  Victoria and Lisa helped me make the emotional changes necessary to demand a higher value for my work, and taught a step by step process for getting the most from sales negotiations." 

Linda Gryczan, Helena, Montana

1. their reputation for success at trial;
2. their ability to choose the right moment to first discuss settlement;
3. their ability to "control" their team and their client ("control" being a legal term for good client relations arising from top notch client communication skills);
4. their negotiation skill set - both in terms of long-term strategy and "at the table" tactics;
5. their persuasive skill set - both with opposing counsel and with the mediator;
6. their ability to conduct a risk-benefit analysis that approximates the true likelihood of their probable success at trial;
7. their determination to make aggressive but reasonable first offers;
8. their possession of and willingness to stick to a set of flexible "bottom lines" that give them sufficient room to "horse trade" and "hang the meat low enough for the dog to smell it;
9. their ability to bring the right people to the table at the right time; and,
10. their ability to walk away without dramatics if the other side is unwilling to negotiate in the realm of reality.

Some of these skills are in all litigators' arsenals.  Where most litigators are the weakest is in the negotiation of settlements.  I know it not only because it was my greatest area of weakness ("I'm paid to win not to settle") but because I see it evidenced in mediation when attorneys bargain half the day away in the useless strato- and nano-spheres.

Here are two new resources you should have at hand every working day.  "Having blog resources at hand," by the way, means having a google or other news reader to send you RSS feeds. 

Decision Tree Analysis - the Decision Tree Analysis Blog by PaperChace.  There's a ten-day free trial of PaperChace's decision tree analysis software for mediators, a free trial I'll take advantage of once the $^%@# book is finished (any day now, really).  Laywers love numbers in the way only people who don't understand them can.  I've had cases settle promptly as soon as everyone has put themselves to the task of making numeric estimates of their chances of success on the merits at any given stage of the litigation.  For making the uncertain certain and depressing overly optimistic client expectations there's nothing quite like numbers.  Do check it out.

There's another mediation blog to read as well, but not simply "yet another" blog by yet another mediator.  This is Lee Jay Berman, one of the best and busiest mediators in town, the teacher of thousands in Pepperdine's internationally known and respected "Mediating the Litigated Case" and President of his own mediation think-tank and training station - the American Institute of Mediation.

The blog, Eye on Conflict, will deliver to you free of charge the wisdom, education and training you'd otherwise pay thousands of dollars for.  Listen, I spent two full years at the Straus Institute earning my LL.M in dispute resolution and every time I talk to Lee Jay he tells me something that improves my ability to help lawyers negotiate settlement 100%.  Today Lee Jay mourns the passing of a giant in our field - Richard Millen.  As you read Lee Jay's tribute, you come to understand just how deeply embedded he and his vision are in mediation theory and practice in Southern California.

Put these two dynamite resources in your news reader and be as good a settlement negotiator as you are a litigator and trial attorney.

What does the 200-year present have to do with conflict resolution week?  It reminds us that new forms never really completely replace the old ones.  We continue to employ every technique we've ever used to suppress, avoid, deny, resolve, transform, or transcend conflict, including force (violent and non-violent such as injunctions subject of a Trial Warrior Blog post this week); thievery (the Trade Secrets Blog); shaming (which Scott Greenfield does to bloggers "looking for fights and dumb as dirt" and which Volokh suggests we do to health insurers); bullying (solutions to which appear at the Citizen Media Law Project); torture (still with us at the Crim Prof Blog); cheating (Make Yourself Better with Their Secrets at Concretely Ambiguous) ingratiation (at the Law School Expert); persuasive argumentation; appeal to third party authority; bargaining; communication; and, problem solving (The Tao of Advice at the Business of Creativity). 

Whichever dispute resolution mechanism you use, it should be much improved if you take up  juggling (as reported this week at Idealawg).

Transformative conflict resolution of the type covered by New York City police officer, Jeff Thompson at Enjoy Mediation, requires accountability (by lawyers, for instance, to the principle of justice at Law21); recognition (at JD Bliss); apology, amends, reconciliation (at Opinio Juris); power with (negotiation and cooperation at the Ohio Family Law Blog) instead of power over (at the Election Law Blog); and, interests rather than rights (at the Gay Couples Law Blog).

No brand of law-giver or enforcer has ever entirely left the scene.  Cops, negotiators, mediators (on the international scene at the Business Conflict Blog); conciliators, arbitrators, trial attorneys (marking tattoos as exhibits over at LawComix), corporate lawyers, legislators  (fomenting a Franken Amendment at the ADR Prof Blawg); judges (whether elected or appointed at Legally Unbound), and, juries (who might be biased at SCOTUS Blog). 

And of course the gadflies (wolf protection lawsuits anyone? at  Point of Law). 

Win, lose, settle, enjoin (at Charon QC) or simply give up (6 Ways We Gave Up Our Privacy at CSO Security and Risk).  We regulate crime and prescribe punishment (Polanski at Sentencing Law and Policy and The End of an Era at Defending People). 

We wage war (at Prawfs Blog) and seek peace (at the Delaware Employment Law Blog) as conflict inevitably erupts over Obama's (embarrassing) peace prize (at Balkinization).

And, lest we forget our primary purpose, we bend our efforts toward justice (which, according to BLT is not necessarily available to card-carrying members of the ACLU).

My own personal 200-year present spans the life of my maternal grandparents who were nine years old in 1909, and that of my step-children’s children, who (assuming they procreate on a reasonable schedule) should be ninety-five'ish in 2109. 

My grandfather, born in 1900, witnessed the birth of electricity, saw the first automobile roll off an assembly line ^[2] and stood awestruck in a cornfield as one of mankind’s first airplanes took flight. ^[3]  Although we've progressed from bi-planes to jets and rockets (some of which may someday be green) we still fly balloons of the type first launched in 1783 -- both Goodyear Blimps and the backyard variety, covered this week by Legal Blog Watch as Law and More

asked here whether the shiny, flying, silver Jiffy Pop-looking craft tethered in the backyard of Richard Heene was an "attractive nuisance" under the law.

Grandpa's first war was, well, the First and his second was the Second,^[4]  as if there'd never been any wars before the Great One. By the time I was born, mid-century, we'd fought the war to end all wars twice and knew we'd never survive a third. 

My imagined grandchildren, ^[6] born sometime between today and 2014, will not be strangers to any of my grandfather’s technologies. Despite the advent of compact fluorescent light bulbs, the early lives of my step-children's children will likely pass under the glow of the same incandescent lights that brightened granddad’s one-room school house. They will be transported to school in cars with internal combustion engines, learn the same alphabet from the same cardboard and paper books (as well as from the "e" variety) ^[7] and play many of the same games ^[8]  he did – hop scotch, jump rope and ring-around the rosy. 

Change will etch itself into the lives of my grandchildren as surely as it did my own, my parents' and my grandparents'.  Hybrids will give way to fully electric (and perhaps hemp-powered) ^[9] vehicles (effective or defective) and though electricity will continue to be  generated by hydroelectric dams, wind farms and nuclear power plants, some new and unimaginable source of power will surely push back the nights of my grand children's children. ^[10]

Law, politics, society and culture also exist in the 200-year present of conflict resolution.  ^[11] In my personal 200-year span, the law seems to have changed the most profoundly. Was it the law first and culture later?  Or do they weave our future together?

The first U.S. woman lawyer, Myra Bradwell, was admitted to practice a mere ten years before my grandmother was born. Mrs. Bradwell’s legal career was the subject of one of the sorriest U.S. Supreme Court decisions ever handed down, in which the Court opined,

The civil law as well as nature itself, has always recognized a wide difference in the respective spheres and destinies of man and woman. Man is, or should be, woman’s protector and defender.  The natural and proper timidity and delicacy which belongs to the female sex evidently unfits it for many of the occupations of civil life. The constitution of the family organization, which is founded in the divine ordinance, as well as in the nature of things, indicates the domestic sphere as that which properly belongs to the domain and functions of womanhood. The harmony, not to say the identity, of interests and views which belong, or should belong, to the family institution is repugnant to the idea for a woman adopting a distinct and independent career from that of her husband … for these reasons I think that the laws of Illinois now complained of are not obnoxious to the charge of any abridging any of the privileges and immunities of cities of the United States.

^[12]

Another nineteen years would pass after Bradwell began her practice before she (and my nineteen year old grandmother) were guaranteed the right to vote. ^[13] And another 30 years would pass after my women's movement -- the Second Wave -- before we'd have our own  business magazine -   ForbesWoman (my part in it here).  And let us not forget that despite the 20th Century's great civil rights achievements, when America catches a cold, black America gets pneumonia.  See e.g. Problems All Around for Blacks in Big Law at Being a Black Lawyer.

My grandparents', parents' and step-children's 20th Century was dominated by genocide ^[14] on a scale and a technological precision unimaginable to our earlier forebears.  Mid-century brought with it the threat of nuclear annihilation but also liberated millions of people enslaved by colonialism.  We cured polio in my own lifetime with both "dead" and "live" vaccines (neither of them counterfeit) - a singular moment in scientific history during which no one took ownership of the cure and no one tried to stop others from seeking another, a problem Patently O addressed this week in Reverse Payments.

Whether god or satan, heaven or hell, war or peace "won" the twentieth century, the world's greatest peace-making body was created during it -- the United Nations.  And here in the U.S., the “living room war,” Viet Nam, coupled with the largest generation of adolescents ever to grace American society, ended the forcible induction of young men into the military. ^[15]

With the recent discovery of our earliest ancestor, Ardi, our biological and social lives exist in a 4.4 million year now. Our physical bodies “evolve” in the womb along the same lines as did our species and, once born, we carry with us our earliest organs. ^[16] Most critical of these to conflict escalation and avoidance is our “fight-flight” mechanism – the amygdala.^[17] And the most pertinent biological agents to promote the collaborative resolution of conflict are our “mirror neurons” which

 provide a powerful biological foundation for the evolution of culture . . . absorb[ing] it directly, with each generation teaching the next by social sharing, imitation and observation.

 ^[18]

As “exquisitely social creatures,” our “survival depends on understanding the actions, intentions and emotions of others.” Id. That our misunderstandings and cognitive biases -- mentioned by Volokh on Paternalism and Michael Carbone on reactive devaluation at Mediation Strategies this week -- threaten our survival as a species is undeniable (cf. Lawyers Must Survive or Face Extinction at the Lawyerist). 

How we’ve manage to survive despite our tendency to misread one another’s actions, intentions and emotions, is often the subject of those who advise us how to choose and move juries -- here -- Anne Reed at Deliberations (explaining why "they" don't see things like "we" do here); and, the Jury Room (explaining why pain hurts more intensely when we believe it's been intentionally inflicted here). 

The Most Effective Conflict Resolution Technology is the Oldest

One of our true original gangsters, Al Capone, is reported to have said that “you can get much further with a kind word and a gun than you can with a kind word alone” and one of our greatest Presidents, Theodore Roosevelt said “speak softly and carry a big stick.”

Capone and Roosevelt didn't know it, but they were talking about the most effective (and most ancient) form of conflict resolution – tit for tat. In 1980, political Scientist Robert Axelrod asked game theory experts to submit computer programs designed to prevail in a game that provided the highest reward to cooperating pairs -- the famous Prisoner's Dilemma. (See also Max Kennerly's excellent post on Game Theory and Medical Malpractice Settlements at the Philadelphia Litigation and Trial Blog).

The winner of Axelrod's competition was a program named tit for tat.  Tit for tat was programmed to cooperate ^[19]  with its first encounter with any other programmed player.  It  rewarded cooperation with cooperation (just as networking will reward the savvy lawyer over at Chuck Newton's Ride the Third Wave) and punished non-cooperation with retaliation. Because Tit for Tat retaliated in the face of non-cooperation (just as a former employee did according to Hell Hath No Fury at Chicago Law Blogger) it was never repeatedly victimized. And because Tit for Tat “forgave” non-cooperators upon their return to cooperative game playing (as some believe Mr. Polanski should be forgiven over at the Marquette U. Law School Faculty Blog) it never got locked into mutually costly chains of mutual betrayal. ^[20]

As Robert Wright, author of The Moral Animal explained, had Tit for Tat been tossed into the game with 50 steadfast non-cooperators, there would have been a 49-way tie for first place. But none of the players' programs failed to cooperate in at least some circumstances, leaving Tit for Tat the clear victor.  According to Wright, humans, like the programs in Axelrod's competition, are evolutionarily “designed” to cooperate under at least some circumstances. The engine and benefit of cooperation is present in our neurochemistry.  When scientists observed the brain activity of volunteers playing the Prisoner’s Dilemma game, for instance, they found that the participants' “reward circuits” were activated and their impulsive "me first" circuits inhibited when they cooperated. Cooperation, retaliation, forgiveness and a return to cooperation. Tit for Tat. 

Laws and Lawyers

First and most importantly, I suppose, are the social media signs that you're "tweeting" like a lawyer over at the Social Media Law Student Blog.  Why first or important?  Know thyself.  Everything else follows that.

We don't "dis" lawyers here at the Negotiation Blog.  We simply remind ourselves that our primary purpose is the promotion of justice, with a stable societal order closely behind.  Most people don't understand, for instance, that Shakespeare's famous the first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers was not an insult.  In King Henry IV, Act IV, Scene II, Shakespeare's sentiment was not his own, but that of a revolutionary who wished to destroy the social order.

The historic "present" of laws and lawyers is in the thousands, not simply the hundreds, of years. Hammurabi (make of his choice for the memorialization of his laws what you will) was the sixth king of Babylon, remembered for creating -- in his own name (and likeness?) - the first written and systematic legal code. 

These laws provided for a mix of physical punishment - 60 lashes with an ox hide whip - ‘measure for measure’ awards (still with us in the form of lethal injection as covered by The StandDown Texas Project) – eye for eye, bone fracture for bone fracture – and monetary compensation – 20 shekels for tooth injuries – (preserved by workplace injury awards such as those discussed at the Workers Compensation Blog) depended not only upon the type of injury, but the social classes involved in the loss, i.e., ‘measure for measure’ sanctions were specified for losses among the upper classes while monetary awards were required for losses caused to and by commoners (reminding us that disrespect still too often turns on social status or "outsider" classification as discussed at Balkinization this week).  ^[23] 

For the wrongful killing of another, for instance, the victim’s kin were paid according to the social status of the deceased party. Thus the ‘man price’ for killing a peasant was 200 shillings and that for a nobleman 1200 shillings. Payments were not, however, tailored to the loss, but fixed according to types of affront, a distinction we continue to make when we punish intentional torts more severely than negligent ones.  ^[24]>

Criminal law and civil, it all comes down to a process that is "due" (a topic covered in a blistering post about tea-partiers and other "protectors" of the Constitution at the Criminal Jurisdiction Law Blog) and a set of guidelines against which we can exercise some small degree of control over our own commercial and personal futures (like those subject of Delays Not "Party Time, Excellent" for Subcontractor at the Construction Contract Review).

Lawyers, litigators and trial lawyers are too often demonized by the ADR community as if you could get someone to sit down to negotiate without first pointing the gun of litigation at their heads; I salute you (and myself, for that matter!) for bringing us all to the bargaining table.  See Steve Mehta's recent post at Mediation Matters, Factors When Peace Makes Sense for a note that touches upon the symbiotic relationship between litigation and mediation, litigators and mediators.

I shouldn't cite single legal blogs twice, but I cannot resist this quote of Scott Greenfield's on another pundit's view of the future lawyers have in store for them, i.e., 

shucking oysters for a living if we don't accept a future of lawyers being piece workers in factories, sending our work off to Bangalore in pdf files and complementing people on their choice of forms at Legal Zoom.

Legal Rebels:  the Sky is Falling at Simple Justice.  Charon QC also weighs in on the ABA Legal Rebels project here.

Arbitration

Which came first? Public civil trials or private arbitrations? You’ll be surprised, I’ll wager, to hear that arbitration was one of the earliest forms of dispute resolution, practiced by the juris consults of the Roman Empire. Roman arbitration predates the adversarial system of common law by more than a thousand years. ^[25]

Ah, the glory of Rome! The juris consulti were (like too many mediators) amateurs who dabbled in dispute resolution, raising the question whether they (and we) should be certified or regulated as Diane Levin asks at The Mediation Channel this week.  The Roman hobbyists gave legal opinions (responsa) to all comers (a practice known as publice respondere). They also served the needs of Roman judges and governors would routinely consult with advisory panels of jurisconsults before rendering decisions. Thus, the Romans – god bless them! - were the first to have a class of people who spent their days thinking about legal problems (an activity some readers will recall Ralph Nader calling "mental gymnastics in an iron cage").

18th Century Dispute Resolution Technology:  The (Inevitably Polarizing) Adversarial System

It was Buckminster Fuller who famously opined that the "significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them."  If you keep this aphorism in mind for the remainder of this post, you'll likely have some extraordinarily innovative comments to make in the comment section below.

As the Law Guru wiki reminds us, we can trace the adversarial system to the "medieval mode of trial by combat, in which some litigants were allowed a champion to represent them."  We owe our present day adversarialism, however, to the common law's use of the jury - the power of argumentation replacing the power of the sword.

The Act abolishing the infamous Star Chamber in 1641 also granted every "freeman" the right to trial by "lawful judgment of his peers" or by the "law of the land" before the Crown could "take[] or imprison[]" him or "disseis[e] [him] of his freehold or liberties, or free customs."  Nor could he any longer be "outlawed or exciled or otherwise destroyed."  Nor could the King "pass upon him or condemn him." 

English colonies like our own adopted the jury trial system and we, of course, enshrined that system in the Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh Amendments.  Whether this 17th century dispute resolution technology can be fine-tuned to keep abreast of 21st century dispute creation technology (particularly in the quickly moving area of intellectual property) remains one of the pressing questions of legal and ADR policy and practice, particularly in a week in which a Superior Court verbally punished the lawyers before it for filing The Most Oppressive Motion Ever Presented (see the Laconic Law Blog).  The motion? 

Defendants['] . . . motion for summary judgment/summary adjudication, seeking adjudication of 44 issues, most of which were not proper subjects of adjudication.  Defendants’ separate statement was 196 pages long, setting forth hundreds of facts, many of them not material—as defendants’ own papers conceded.  And the moving papers concluded with a request for judicial notice of 174 pages.  All told, defendants’ moving papers were 1056 pages.

Id. (and ouch!)  On a less Dickensian note (think Bleak House) take a look at the IP Maximizer's post on IP litigation not being smart source of revenue for inventors. 

Mediator, author and activist, Ken Cloke, suggests that interest-based resolutions to conflict must replace power and rights based resolutions if we expect to create a future in which justice prevails.  As Ken wrote in Conflict Revolution:

Approaching evil and injustice from an interest-based perspective means listening to the deeper truths that gave rise to them, extending compassion even to those who were responsible for evils or injustices, and seeking not merely to replace one evil or injustice with another, but to reduce their attractiveness by designing outcomes, processes, and relationships that encourage adversaries to work collaboratively to satisfy their interests.

Evil and injustice can therefore be considered byproducts of reliance on power or rights, and failures or refusals to learn and evolve.

All political systems generate chronic conflicts that reveal their internal weaknesses, external pressures, and demands for evolutionary change. Power- and rights-based systems are adversarial and unstable, and therefore avoid, deny, resist, and defend themselves against change. As a result, they suppress conflicts or treat them as purely interpersonal, leaving insiders less informed and able to adapt, and outsiders feeling they were treated unjustly and contemplating evil in response.

As pressures to change increase, these systems must either adapt, or turn reactionary and take a punitive, retaliatory attitude toward those seeking to promote change, delaying their own evolution. Only interest-based systems are fully able to seek out their weaknesses, proactively evolve, transform conflicts into sources of learning, and celebrate those who brought them to their attention.

These are the words I leave with the readers of Blawg Review #234 because they are the ones that informed my personal and professional transformation from a legal career based on rights and remedies to one based upon interests and consensus. 

Whatever my own personal 200-year present was, is and will be, it is pointed in the direction of peace with justice, with an enormous and probably unwarranted optimism best expressed by the man after whom my law school was named:  Martin Luther King, Jr.  - the arc of history is long, but it bends toward justice.

Blawg Review has information about next week's host, and instructions how to get your blawg posts reviewed in upcoming issues. Next week's host, Counsel to Counsel, will devote its round-up of the week's best legal posts to the Great Recession.

We bloggers put a lot of work into these blogs - more work than could ever possibly be justified by ROI.  We do so because we love our work and want to share it with the world; because we like to learn from other bloggers and to share our insights with them; and because we're readers and writers and, frankly, geeks!

We also blog, I think, because we always wanted to be part of the "life of the mind" that University promised to be but never quite delivered because . . . heck! we were too young to appreciate it.  In my case, that meant cutting far too many classes to play PONG (yes PONG)

in the bar at The Surfer on the boardwalk at Pacific Beach just south of U.C. San Diego from which I graduated by, among other things, throwing myself on the mercy of my T.S. Eliot prof who permitted me to give him my final paper on "Burnt Norton" in the faculty dining room (thanks Jack!) as well as on Professor Lettau who let me out of the required upper division German Literature class after I flunked my translation mid-term on "Death in Venice" ("Never return to class," he said, "and I'll give you a B!")  

I'm temporizing.  Putting off what I'm about to say.  Here it is!

SETTLE IT NOW IS THE NUMBER ONE ULTIMATE RANKED CONFLICT RESOLUTION BLOG by this obscure company.  (they even gave me this prize:  !!)

Because I endeavor to provide value instead of endless self-promotion in this blog, I give you a recent interview with two of the legal blogging world's foremost authorities, Robert Ambrogi and Larry Bodine.  Excerpt below and full interview here (.pdf).

What are the most essential ingredients to a successful legal blog?

Ambrogi: The elements of success for a legal blog are theme, authority, consistency and voice.  By theme, I mean that the blog should have a distinct focus (a topic of law, location, element of practice, target clientele, etc.). By authority, I mean that the blogger should have command of the subject and write posts that reflect that. The best posts are those that combine knowledge and insight, so that the reader will learn something about the topic and also about what the blogger thinks of the topic.

By consistency, I mean just that. Daily is good but not essential. A blogger should strive to post a couple times a week at a minimum. Better to write fewer posts of higher quality than to post a steady stream of useless information.

By voice, I mean a recognizable style. For many bloggers, this comes with time. Write for a general audience and avoid the kind of stiffness and legalese common in other forms of legal writing.  [A]s with any form of marketing, [blogging] success is measured by the goals one hopes to reach. Traffic, for example, is not a measure of success if it is not coming from the blogger's potential clientele. At its simplest, success in blogging can be measured by the degree to which the blogger is able to achieve greater recognition and greater respect among those who constitute potential clients.

Bodine: Successful bloggers post frequently – once a day if possible. (I typically pre-write several days worth of posts, and time them to appear one day at a time). Successful bloggers are totally focused on their readers’ interests – they never stray off-topic and they keep out egocentric posts about being on vacation and what they saw on TV. Their content must be “unmissable” – it must make a difference in their reader’s lives. A successful blog always reflects the interests of its constituency.

As you can see, I've violated nearly all the rules but "voice" here, hoping my readers will forgive the occasional idle ramble through my stream of consciousness.

I'm happy whenever new legal bloggers contact me to ask whether I'll add them to my blog roll because it gives me an opportunity to be of service to the Blawgosphere that has done so much for me.  Because I keep writing this same responsive e-mail from scratch however, I'm going to finally post my most recent free advice so that I can simply link to it next time.

Here’s how linking works.

You add blogs in which you’re interested to a news reader like google reader.  You read them and find items that stir your own thoughts – that make you want to engage in a public conversation about the topic at hand. 

You cite to that blog in your blog and link to it.  Generally, you excerpt a bit of someone else’s post and extend the breadth or depth or reach of it.   

Soon, people with a natural affinity to what you’re talking about will be citing to you and excerpting your material.  If you say interesting things about settlement, negotiation, or conflict resolution in general, I’ll find you (I’ll add you to my news reader today to watch your blog grow).  If I'm following you and you're practicing law and writing about it, eventually I'll see something interesting you've mentioned that I'll want to write about too.  I'll excerpt a bit of your post, give you credit and link to you.

I get somewhere between 30 and 40,000 visitors a month. People who are vitally interested in your area of practice will find you because I’ve mentioned you; because I add my audience and my "authority" to your own. (See Psychology of Persuasion at the Flying Solo Blog).   This will not happen as a result of your being on my "blog roll" (to which I won't add you because it's a waste of your and my time).

Before you know it, bloggers will begin arriving at your blog-door bearing gifts.  It's the Blog Welcome Wagon!  You'll get free advice, some of which will be good (like this) and some of which may not.  I must tell you, however, that I've never received any bad advice from an active blogger.

What gifts will the Welcome Wagon bring?  Lists mostly.  Bloggers will tell you the location of the best schools for your children; the name of their gardener; warnings about neighborhood bullies and stores that rip you off.  If your grass needs mowing or you've allowed weeds to pop up in the cracks of your sidewalk, they'll mention that too.  If your Blog House gets a new paint job or adds a wing, they'll let others know it and drop by to tell you how nice it looks.  Your kids will baby sit theirs.  You'll be invited to neighborhood Bar-b-Q's and asked to serve on the Neighborhood Watch.  If you're interested, you might eventually be elected Mayor of Your Blog Town.

Someday soon, something you write will appear in Blawg Review (for which I’m a “sherpa”).   Maybe you’ll even (gasp) begin to twitter.  Anonymous Ed. of Blawg Review will be in your twitter network, as will Kevin O’Keefe at Lex Blog who aggregates legal twitterers at LexTweet.  Follow everyone Kevin follows.  He has a HUGE twitter network of law bloggers.  The Wall Street Journal’s “onespot” might follow you too and if you write something topical (the current economy is always a good bet) you’ll find your blog cited there.  Then you can tell the people who poo-poo'ed your blogging effort that you were cited in the Wall Street Journal.  "So there!"

Eventually, reporters  will begin to call you and ask for your opinion.  Lawyers who aren’t in your business will refer clients to you (without asking for that pesky referral fee because reciprocity is the grease that runs the gears and levers of Web 2.0 - not money).   Hat tip to Blog of Mr. Tweet.

Read the newspapers and magazines and watch the movies and television that your market reads and watches.  Participate in their events.  Speak to them in their local habitats.  Share your knowledge.  Link, link, link, link, link.  The blogosphere is a virtuous circle of good intentions and enlightened self-interest. 

In EVERYTHING you do, refer to your blog.  Put it on your business cards.  Mention it when you speak to other lawyers or to local business groups.  Walk your talk.  Have integrity.  Be consistent.  Be interesting, novel, innovative, passionate, wise and generous.  Be of service.  Always say "yes" to a Blawgosphere request, even if the "yes" is wrapped in a "no" (this, for instance, which says "no" to the blog roll request but yes to your participation in my network as a P.I. blogger).

Welcome.  The water’s warm and the natives friendly.  Feel free to call or write for blog advice anytime.  And thanks for letting me be of service.

Best,

Vickie

p.s. here, by the way, is Michael Lawson Neff's new Atlanta Personal Injury Blog.

(image:  a rejected "finalist" for the flag of Canada:  a "[c]ompromise idea created by Alan Beddoe, who wanted to appease the Royalists and the French population.")

Section A - News

1. The Recession
2. Prosecutors on the Ropes
3. Same-sex Marriage

Section B - World

1. International Justice
2. Spotlight: Canada

Section C - Business

1. Law Practice Innovation
2. Google
3. Copyright

Section D - Life
Section E - Sports
Section F - Technology
Section G - Education
Section H - Community
Section I - Religion
Section J - Comics
Section K - Editorial

As Jordan reminds us

Exactly four years ago this week, Blawg Review made its debut. Two hundred and seven installations later — stop and think about that for a second, of all the work by Ed, Colin,Victoria and others — it’s still going strong. If you’re a law blogger who hasn’t yet stepped up and hosted this brilliant and critically important example of citizen legal journalism, you owe it  — to yourself, to your blawgging colleagues, and most importantly, to the public at large that needs to hear what we know — to sign up now.

Blawg Review has information about next week’s host, and instructions how to get your blawg posts reviewed in upcoming issues

Lawyers are shrewd keepers of the score

They're in the AmLaw100 or 200, serve Fortune 50 or 500 clients and attended a top 10 Tier 1 law school as reported yearly by the U.S. World and News Report. 

Every year the ABA announces the Top 100 Law Blogs, the local legal rag - the Los Angeles Daily Journal - lists the top 100 lawyers, top 40 neutrals and 75 top women litigators.

There are Best Lawyers, Super Lawyers and Chambers-rated lawyers. 

Perhaps this addiction to knowing one's precise place among one's peers started with the LSAT, the SAT or even the PSAT. 

In my elementary school, we had two classes for each grade and I knew I was with the "smart kids" as early as grade three.  I'm able to remember this because I learned I was being channeled into what we called "the dumb kids' class" for my fourth grade school year.  I raced home crying; mom called the school; and, next thing you knew, all was right with my world again:  I'd been moved to Mrs. Wells 4th grade class with all of my "smart kid" friends. 

That's the precise moment I first believed that my alleged intelligence was premised upon a fraud.  My "mommy" got me in. 

I wonder how many lawyers have had similar experiences or live with similar fears.  Our fixation on pinning ourselves to charts like insects on a board certainly suggests that I am not alone.

That being said, I announce with the usual degree of cynicism concerning any ranking the announcement that the Settle It Now Blog made it into the Avvo list of the top 50 (never before heard of Alexa list) of top law blogs (no. 33). 

Sigh.  I'm 57 and still "in recovery" from that third grade morality play (yes, I felt guilty about being with the "smart" kids ever after). 

Here are my personal and institutional statistics, followed by novelist Don DeLillo's great meditation on the same theme.

LSAT:   a shameful 613

• to give you an idea of what 613 meant, "[b]y 1980 [the year I graduated], the LSAT mean for students entering the University of Illinois College of Law (no. 27) was 679 (from The Rise of the LSAT)
• 679 was the LSAT median for Harvard's class of 1969 if you're comparing the brain size of younger and older attorneys.

Law School U.C. Davis:  U.S. News and World Report:  No. 44

• personal number:  12 in a class of 160'ish

LL.M Straus Institute of Dispute Resolution:

• No. 1 graduate school in dispute resolution
• in 66th ranked Pepperdine University School of Law

Legal Practice: 

• only AmLaw firms I worked for:  Buchalter Nemer (199) and Pepper Hamilton (95)
• personal number:  no list. of any kind.  whatsoever. ever.

Blog:  Avvo no. 33.

But as my mom says, I'm always no. 1 with her!

Hereafter, the great American novelist Don DeLillo on our national obsession with statistics:

America is a sanitarium for every kind of statistic. We take care of them. We try to understand them. We do what we can to make them well. Numbers are important because whatever fears we might have concerning the shattering of our minds are largely dispelled by the satisfaction of knowing precisely how we are being driven mad, at what decibel rating, what mach-ratio, what force of aerodynamic drag. So there is a transferred madness, a doubling, between the numbers themselves and those who make them and care for them. We need them badly ; there is no arguing that point. With numbers we are able to conceal doubt. Numbers render the present day endurable, herald the impressive excesses of the future and stocked with a fine deceptive configuration our memories, such as they are, of the past. We are all natural scientists. War or peace, we thrive on the body-count. If I were on my death-bed today, and did not know the date, my cells would probably refuse to surrender. Without a calendar, a stopwatch, a measuring cup on the night table, I couldn’t possibly know how to die.

Here at Above the Law, we thrive on taking a vat of hydrochloric acid to the veneer of the legal profession and exposing the original craftsmanship underneath. Nothing is sacred.

When given the opportunity to serve for Blawg Review -- the "blog carnival for everyone interested in law" -- I was excited to take Above the Law's brand of rousing rabble out on the road. How many "Sacred Cows" are out there? How many can I hunt and grill? And as Denise Howell might ask me on her "Yo Comments Are Whack" podcast: "how many cow jokes can you take in one week before you end up on a liposuction table?" Eric Turkewitz already tussled with Oprah this week, so the easiest mark has already been bagged.

Of course, ATL is also a news organization. So while I had high hopes of continuing my friendly banter with Loyola Law School Dean Victor Gold, the news of the week inexorably pushes me in one direction. Luckily, it turns out that the thing everybody was blogging about this week is the biggest sacred cow of all, and it is ripe for poaching.

Put down those canned objections to interrogatories and read on here.

Just before I leave: if you've enjoyed looking at the global blawgosphere, Charon's international resources may help you as much as they helped me. He's produced a Netvibes page covering the main UK blawgs and Pageflakes full of feeds from US blawgs, Canadian blawgs and blawgs from Australia, New Zealand, Scotland and Ireland.

I hope you liked Blawg Review #202; and I think you should expect something quite different next week from the notorious Geeklawyer. He tells me he's having technical difficulties at the moment - but fear not! All will be well in time for Blawg Review #203.

Blawg Review has information about next week's host, and instructions how to get your blawg posts reviewed in upcoming issues.

It's the British, of course

My postcast interview with the great QC is here and his own is below.

Podcast 94: US lawyer Victoria Pynchon on ADR, mediation and settlement in the USA

Today I am talking to Victoria Pynchon, a US lawyer based in Los Angeles, California. She was a commercial litigator and trial attorney for 24 years before shifting her practice from representing clients in court to helping lawyers settle lawsuits hat involve greater risk, expense or time than their clients wish to expend. She this work through Judicate West Dispute Resolution Services, serves as a private judge (arbitrator) for the American Arbitration Association, is an adjunct professor at Pepperdine University and blogs at IP ADR and Settle it now. Interestingly Vickie also acts as a sherpa for Blawg Review the international rolling carnival of law bloggers and is on Twitter.

So who is Charon QC?  Let him tell you himself in this Podcast Interview at Family Lore, the blog of British family law attorney John Bolch.  To get an even better idea of Charon QC and the many reasons to read his blog, I give you his own introduction to himself at Charon QC the Blawg.

NEWS ALERT:  I'm not working here. 

If blogging isn't fun or compelling in some other way - if I'm not just BURSTING to share something with my readers, I'm not doing it.  The same is true for Blawg Review.  If it's not laugh out loud funny, genuinely inspiring or impossible to put down (the well told tale) I'm not reading it.  Really.  Talk about social networking and search engine optimization all you want. Twitter on with an eye toward building your "brand" or expanding your client base or padding your curriculum vitae.  I admire you for blogging and linking and tweeting with a genuine business plan.  Me?  I'm just trying to have a little fun; give and get a little wisdom; and, populate my life with smart people who make me think, laugh or cry.

Before I proceed, I want you to know what I mean when I say "well told tale" because that's pretty much the standard for my Blawg Review nominations (along with creativity, which needs no example other than the Blawg Review that exemplifies it below.

Magnolia.  Well Told Tale.  Which also asks the question most critical to reconciliation (about which this blog posts quite a bit):   "What can we forgive?" 

 That said, here are my choices for Blawg Review of the Year.

#182 David Gulbransen's Preaching to the Perverted

I said "Flat out brilliant! And fun!" at the time and looking back at David's Multi-State Bar Exam Template for Blawg Review #182, I'm as entertained today as I was at first sight.  I'm certain thousands of other lawyers reading Gulbransen's Bar Exam Blawg Review still have nightmares about this test (as do I) ten, twenty or thirty years later.  Blawg Review #182 subverts the nightmare and makes this old boogy-man a clown.  Sharp in lay-out too, which no other Blawg Review of 2008 matched.  And I must admit that any Blawg with the kicker "wise up suckers" shows just the kind of rebelliousness I look for in my posse.

Below:  Wise Up from Magnolia

BlawgReview #182 is highly deserving of the award for Blawg Review of the Year.

#188 NY Personal Injury Law

"Arlo Guthrie was at my door," reports Eric Turkewitz. "Which was kind of funny," he said, "since I hadn't exactly invited him to Thanksgiving dinner with the law bloggers we were having, but this being Thanksgiving he thought it would be a friendly gesture to show up and help me write Blawg Review. And so he did."  Blame it on the Baby Boom or my Lit Major, but taking the Legal Blawgosphere on a Time Trip back to Alice's Restaurant is likely my own favorite for BlawgReview of the year even as I give it an even tie with Preaching to the Perverted's slick 21st Century template. 

BlawgReview#188 is equally deserving of the award for Blawg Review of the Year.

Below:  Alice's Restaurant (no need to acquire the taste; you pretty much had to be there)  

Colin Samuels' Infamy or Praise Blawg Review #189 ties it up for Blawg Review of the Year with the Rime of the Ancient Mariner. 

The Wedding Guest is the Compelling Narrator's ideal reader and the Ancient Mariner the Ideal Reader's compelling narrator.

He holds him with his glittering eye--
The Wedding-Guest stood still,
And listens like a three years child:
The Mariner hath his will.

The Wedding-Guest sat on a stone:
He cannot chuse but hear;
And thus spake on that ancient man,
The bright-eyed Mariner.

Colin's Blawg Review also grasped us by our labels and demanded our attention, for which we were richly rewarded, garnering my humble Blawg Review of the Year nomination in a four-way tie.

Below Jack Nicholson Recites Rudyard Kipling in Honor of Blawg Review #189

Ron Coleman's BlawgReview #191 at Likelihood of Confusion is the final, but not the least, of my Blawg Review of the Year Nominations for 2008.  Ron reminds us that the law;  the way we are tormented by it and the means by which we torment it back - is totally the JUDEO part of our Western Civ heritage.  Ron's Hannukah theme does not merely suit the year-end holiday spirit but also our entire rule of law Schtick as it takes us several centuries back in time to find the original legal mash-up.  As I wrote at the time #191 was first posted:

The Menorah represents Torah She'baal Peh or the "Oral Law" which is a companion of the Written Torah; the part that man can derive, embellish, and - in a sense - 'create' by using his own diligence and intelligence in accord with the God-given hermeneutical principles.  In other words, the Torah She'baal Peh is the original mash-up and hence a fitting symbol for Ron Coleman's brilliant (pun intended) Blawg Review #191.

For Ron: Lewis Black on "His" Book

We here in the Goldberg-Pynchon household celebrate both Chanukah and Christmas, as you can see from the really really bad iPhone photo of last night's menorah blazing before the tree in the background. 

The Menorah represents Torah She'baal Peh or the "Oral Law" which is a companion of the Written Torah; the part that man can derive, embellish, and - in a sense - 'create' by using his own diligence and intelligence in accord with the God-given hermeneutical principles.  In other words, the Torah She'baal Peh is the original mash-up and hence a fitting symbol for Ron Coleman's brilliant (pun intended) Blawg Review #191.

Eight days, we learn from Ron's post, is the Hebrew equivalent of This is Spinal Tap's 11 on the dial. 

Nigel Tufnel: t's not ten. You see, most blokes, you know, will be playing at ten. You're on ten here, all the way up, all the way up, all the way up, you're on ten on your guitar. Where can you go from there? Where?
Marty DiBergi: I don't know.
Nigel Tufnel: Nowhere. Exactly. What we do is, if we need that extra push over the cliff, you know what we do?
Marty DiBergi: Put it up to eleven.

But I digress.

Listen, I have nothing to add.  Which is why I'm fooling around here.  You just have to go to Ron's Blawg Review to get the full magnificence of the effort.  I've done one of these Blawg reviews myself and collapsed from exhaustion.  Ron put the whole thing off until the Sunday it was due (if he's not lying to me) which means . . . . well . . . .  he's AWESOME.  And, god bless him, if you ever feel geeky, you know there's a least one legal blogger geekier than thou.

(8's being so . . . well, holy or something . . . we do note that if you let the "1" in the hundreds place stand for the "servant" candle and subtract the remaining "1" from the 9 in the 10's column, you get Blawg Review #8 which was hosted by Crime and Federalism back in 2005.  But that's not all.  This is my 1,007th post -- really -- EIGHT!!  All of which simply re-proves this:  you can make something of nothing and nothing of something, particularly if you ever attended law school).

And for our Jewish readers' viewing and listening pleasure, Adam Sandler singing his infamous Chanukah song.

 Blawg Review has information about next week’s host, and instructions how to get your blawg posts reviewed in upcoming issues.

create a list of recommendations of those blogs you believe others should learn about and publicize on your own blog.  Let's take the idea behind the ABA 100 and expand it.  Let's make December of every year the month we introduce our readers to new blogs of note. Let's give everyone who blogs for education or love of writing and who does so with consistency and quality a pat on the back for a job well done. 

Here's Susan's list:

Jordan Furlong - Law21 Chuck Newton - Third Wave Blog  Marc Randazza - The Legal Satyricon Blog  Enrico Schaefer - The Greatest American Lawyer Grants Griffths - Home Office Lawyer, Home Office Warrior and Blog for Profit A Public Defender PTLawMom Carolyn Elefant - MyShingle  Stephanie West Allen - IdealawgDawn Elaine Bowie - Maryland Father's Rights 

And here is my own:

Blawg Review, which every week delivers to your virtual doorstep the best posts in the legal blogosphere.  BlawgReview is edited by (the currently D-pressed D-listed) anonymous Ed. whose wit and perspicacity has made Blawg Review the place for Blawg-gregation. This year, you'll see that nearly a quarter of the 100 Top ABA Blawgs hosted Blawg Review.   The test of a great blog is not how it powers itself, but how it empowers its readers.  That's why I'm giving Blawg Review the No. 1 spot in my own top 10 list here. (like the nice little gold statue, Ed?  - "Oh my goodness, it's heavy!")

My new favorite ADR Blog Settlement Perspectives offers unparalleled "street" advice about how to do best that which every litigator will do most -- settle the darn thing!  Written by the delightful and charming John DeGroote, Chief Litigation Counsel since 2000 for BearingPoint, Inc., f/k/a KPMG Consulting, Inc., Settlement Perspectives routinely hits the post out of Blawg Park.  If  you aren't now subscribed to it, take my advice and hit the RSS feed RIGHT NOW!

I am a huge Adam's Drafting fan because I spent the vast majority of my litigation career parsing the difference between words like "sudden" and "quick" and because my first legal research assignment back in 1976 was to inform the senior litigation partner at the unlamented Arthur, Dry & Kalish what the word "all" meant. So I can't help but get a little thrill out of posts with titles like -  Enumerated Clauses - When the Trunk is Too Short for the Branch.  If Ken Adams had his way, there wouldn't be a single commercial litigator working today on any case requiring my skills -- contract interpretation and application.  Damn you, Ken Adams!  If you remember how to diagram a sentence, Adam's Drafting is your new best friend.  

In collaboration with Jeffrey M Schwartz, M.D., Stephanie West Allen (one of my "Human Factor" co-columnists at The Complete Lawyer) brings the science of the brain together with the work of the law in Brains on Purpose.  How could you skip a post with a title like Jell-O without whipped cream?  Rhumba without rhythm?  A joke without a punch line?  Mediation without metaphor?  The M.D. after Schwartz's name and J.D. after Stephanie's means this is the real deal and not some new age misapplication of science to law.  Cutting edge.  Enough said.

For the fashionista IP lawyer, there is Counterfeit Chic, a model of legal style, wit, grace, and depth of analysis.  Smart and fun, CC is written by the brilliant, eclectic and ridiculously accomplished Law Professor Susan Scafidi whose interest in fashion came out of the closet before I knew what "RSS feed" meant.  And don't miss the must-read IP book of the 21st century, Professor Scafidi's Who Owns Culture.

My final five are the blogs that keep me working, thinking and sometimes eating -- mediator blah blah (laughing) the Mediation Channel (living), Tammy Lenski (Mediator Tech - eating - and Conflict Zen - breathing) and ADR Prof Blog (thinking).  If you have friends and family, let alone legal disputes, these ADR blogs are all a must on your own personal Top Blawg list (and with this post I hereby grant Tammy Lenski an honorary law degree)

And those of you who haven't yet drunk deeply of the Twitter KoolAid, dive right in @vpynchon.

You have to be of a certain age

That's what Turkewitz did, imagining all of us sitting in the back of a patrol car, driving to the quote Scene of the Crime unquote; telling us about the biggest crime of the last fifty years, so big that everybody wanted to get in the newspaper story about it.

Talking about how

and with a few nasty words to the cop on the side, bailed the Thanksgiving guests out of jail, went back to the church, had a another thanksgiving dinner that couldn't be beat, and didn't get up until the next morning, when we all had to go to court.

It was a typical case of American blind justice, Turkewitz suggests, and there wasn't nothing we could do about it, and the judge wasn't going to look at the twenty seven eight-by-ten color glossy pictures with the circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what each one was to be used as evidence.

We were all fined $50 and had to pick up the garbage in the snow, but that's not what Turkewitz came to tell you about.  Didn't come to talk about the draft either since he can't be old enough to remember  the building they had down New York City called Whitehall Street, where you walk in, you get injected, inspected, detected, infected, neglected and selected.

But he's always wanted to be the all American kid from New York who tells the army shrink I want to kill. I mean, I wanna, I wanna kill. Kill. I wanna, I wanna see, I wanna see blood and gore and guts and veins in my teeth. Eat dead burnt bodies. I mean kill, Kill, KILL, KILL" so that a sargent would come over, pin a medal on him, send him down the hall, say "You're our boy."

Wanted to see himself getting sat down on the Group W bench where they put you if you may not be moral enough to join the army after committing your special crime, with all kinds of mean nasty ugly looking people on the bench there. Mother rapers. Father stabbers. Father rapers! Father rapers sitting right there on the bench! Mean and nasty and ugly and horrible crime-type guys sitting on the bench.

Turkewitz talked about everything being fine, imagining everyone could smoke cigarettes and all kinds of things, until the Sargeant came over and asked  "KID, HAVE YOU REHABILITATED YOURSELF?") so T could say  "I'm sittin' here on the bench, I mean I'm sittin here on the Group W bench 'cause you want to know if I'm moral enough join the army, burn women, kids, houses and villages after bein' a litterbug."

And friends, somewhere in Washington enshrined in some little folder, is a study in black and white of T's fingerprints. And the only reason he's singing his Blawg Review song now is cause you may know somebody in a similar situation, or you may be in a similar situation, and if you're in a situation like that there's only one thing you can do and that's walk into the shrink wherever you are ,just walk in say "Shrink, You can get anything you want, at Alice's restaurant.". And walk out.

You know, if one person, just one person does it they may think he's really sick and they won't take him. And if two people, two people do it, in harmony, they may think they're both faggots and they won't take either of them. And three people do it, three, can you imagine, three people walking in singin a bar of Alice's Restaurant and walking out. They may think it's an organization. And can you, can you imagine fifty people a day,I said fifty people a day walking in singin a bar of Alice's Restaurant and walking out. And friends they may thinks it's a movement. And that's what it is , the Alice's Restaurant Anti-Massacre Movement, and all you got to do to join is sing it the next time it come's around on the guitar.

With thanks to Eric Turkewitz, apologies to Arlo Guthrie and fond remembrances of the idealism of my youth.

Next week, Colin Samuels' fourth Blawg Review at Infamy or Praise.