While debate rages as to whether legal blogging will ever "cross the chasm," new entrants continue to populate the bankruptcy and litigation blogosphere.  First and foremost, however, before welcoming new entrants to the blogosphere, I must pay tribute to one of the pioneers of the blogosphere, Bill Patry of the Patry Copyright Blog (whose blog has been in my blogroll since inception).  Bill has just completed one of the most remarkable single achievements by a lawyer in our time; that being a 17 volume, 6,000 page masterpiece on Copyright Law aptly called Patry on CopyrightRemarkably, the project was seven years in the making and every word was written by Bill!  Congratulations, Bill!  You’re an inspiration for us all!

Congratulations are also in order for Delaware’s "Lou Gehrig" of blogging, Fox Rothchild’s own Francis Pileggi, of the Delaware Corporate and Commercial Litigation Blog, who in his nearly two years of blogging hasn’t missed reporting on every corporate law case of import from Delaware’s federal and state courts, including on these important bankruptcy-related topics:  a bankruptcy trustee’s standing (here and here); duties of an insolvent company’s directors (here, here, and here); deepening insolvency (here, here, here, herehere, and here); D&O indemnity claims (here); arbitration and the automatic stay (here, here, and here); the two dismissal rule (here); legal fees (here); fraudulent transfers (here and here); restrictive covenants in shopping center leases (here); choice of law (here); receivership (herehere, and here); bankruptcy’s effect on Del. appraisal rights (here); sanctions for document destruction in a bankruptcy case (here); and the interface generally between bankruptcy law and corporate law (here).

Now to the newbies I’ve recently added to the blogroll:

Greg Joseph, a great trial lawyer and friend of several who inhabit my firm’s halls, started up the Complex Litigation Blog, focusing on matters pertinent to complex litigation, U.S. and international arbitration, the Federal Rules, and state rules.  The blog provides a daily dose of wisdom from one with a sharp eye for what trial lawyers care about.

Lee Barrett, a bankruptcy litigation lawyer with Forshey & Prostok in Fort Worth just started the E-Everything For Bankruptcy Lawyers Blog, focusing on the impact of the electronic revolution on bankruptcy practice and bankruptcy lawyers’ everyday life.  Here’s a piece Lee wrote for the State Bar of Texas Bankruptcy Law Section Newsletter entitled E-Discovery and the Commercial Bankruptcy Practitioner:  Forget Swimming with the Sharks, Beware of the Nitro Fish!

Those interested in scientific and technical evidentiary issues should subscribe to the Scientic Evidence Blog, published by Cliff Hutchinson of Dallas’ Hughes & Luce.

Chicagoan Mazyar Hedayat moved and renamed his DuPage County Bankruptcy Blog, and continues his up-to-the-minute summaries of significant cases at the Bankruptcy Blog.

Binnacle, LLC, a San Antonio-based consulting group developed a user-friendly site, trollerBk, as a great alternative to the clunky PACER system.  Instead of searching district by district and case by case in PACER for cases, motions, briefs, or orders, TrollerBk provides a one-stop shop for searching and retrieving key documents and information for the 62,118 bankruptcy cases in its database.  It also provides daily RSS feeds of significant corporate bankruptcy filings of the preceding day.  Basic services are provided for free.  Premium services command monthly fees that are surely worth the price if you’re a heavy PACER user. 

1/26/07 UpdateMy former law school classmate, and resident class genius, Randy Picker, now a full tenured professor at the law school, started up two new blogs this semester: the Antitrust & IP Policy Seminar Blog and the Network Industries Blog.   Here’s a link to Randy’s description of the genesis of the blogs, and of the courses he teaches at the law school (the syllabus and course material links alone make the post worth reviewing).  Randy’s first "test" blog back in June 2005 (the "Picker MobBlog"), with its real-time chronicling of the import and subtle nuances of the US Supreme Court’s opinions in Grokster and Brand X, was what turned me on to serious legal blogging, and hooked me from the start.  Best wishes for continued success, Randy!  Thanks for sharing your thinking and materials with us!

© Steve Jakubowski 2007