My friend Bonnie Shucha, author of WisBlawg and Head of Reference for the UW Law Library, has an article on fellow law librarian and blogger Bev Butula and a story that Bev penned regarding the usefulness of blogs to legal professionals with the title of Bella is Bewildered About Blogs.

While the story reads like a children’s tale, it is a quick and fun read on why lawyers should be paying attention to blogs for current and relevant information.

Once again, Neil J. Squillante and the folks at Technolawyer have outdone themselves in producing the second edition of the BlawgWorld 2007 eBook with the new TechnoLawyer Problem/Solution Guide. Since it's release on July 30, 2007, there have been over 10,000 downloads of the eBook.

Containing posts form 77 legal bloggers, Blawgworld 2007 is full of informative and thought provoking information from a wide variety of legal blogs, including one of my own posts on the benefits of practice management software.

You can download your own copy of Blawgworld 2007 here.

In addition to the 77 blog posts, Blawgworld 2007 also includes the Technolawyer Problem/Solution Guide providing answers to a number of questions that lawyers have.

In the 2007 TechnoLawyer Problem/Solution Guide, a sponsored resource, law firms will find 185 real-life Problems and corresponding Solutions. Written from the point of view of a law firm, each Problem/Solution consists of a question and detailed answer as well as a button that links to a Web page with more information. The 77 participating vendors had to comply with strict guidelines, such as the prohibition of superlatives, designed to emphasize information over marketing lingo. (Blawgworld2007 Press Release).

I encourage you to take a look at this publication for its content, but it’s worth checking out for its unique and friendly electronic format as well.

If you’re thinking about blogging or have already started, check out this article titled 55 Essential Articles Every Serious Blogger Should Read on the Entrepreneurial Blog of Matt Huggins .

Matt pulls together a nice compendium of articles that are useful (for the most part) for would be and existing bloggers. I plan on keeping this link handy, since I get a lot of questions on how to start blogging and what makes a good blog.

Thanks to Ian Best’s Law Blog Metrics (f/k/a 3L Epiphany) for his post on Matt’s article.

One of the problems I face is trying to determine which weblogs to read on a regular basis and I'm always looking for new and interesting blogs on topics that are of interest to me.  Most bloggers keep their "blog rolls"  of links to blogs they find interesting and useful and to serve as references to their readers to explore. I recently added several new links to my blog roll and strongly recommend them to you for review.

Ross Ipsa   The blog of my friend and legal technologist,  Ross Kodner, of Microlaw, Inc. Ross is never bashful and always has something useful or interesting on his blog.

The Connected Lawyer   This is the blog of Bryan Sims, an Illinois attorney, friend and fellow member of the Illinois State Bar Association Committee on Legal Technology (CoLT).  Brian's blog has helpful information on mobile technology as well as legal and nonlegal hardware and software.

WisBlawg   The blog of Bonnie Schucha (whom I first met at Blawgthink 2005) at the University of Wisconsin Law Library. Bonnie always provides useful tips and information on legal research and Internet news for her readers.

inter alia  inter alia is the weblog of Tom Mighell. Tom's blog has a wealth of information and links that are of interest to any lawyer.  Tom is actively involved in the ABA Tech show and has presented on numerous topics throughout the country.

For those of you who have an interest in the open source movement of Linux , the ongoing litigation between SCO  and IBM  regarding SCO’s allegations that IBM used information owned by SCO in creating its own operating systems as well as in the creation of Linux.  This litigation has been going on for over 3 years and has been replete with comments from high profile members of the various companies involved as well as such Internet icons as Tim Berners-Lee the acknowledged "father" of the World Wide Web . 

During the pendency of this lawsuit, SCO officers went on the attack through the media making allegations against IBM and others regarding its claims including statements that the specifics of these claims would come out during the court proceedings.  Many believe that the reality of the statements made to the press apparently have not been borne out by SCO' s response to discovery requests and orders of the court which have gone against it. Much of the history and the ongoing court battle can be followed on the Groklaw website .

According to available information, Groklaw was started by Pamela Jones who describes herself as “…a journalist with a paralegal background.”  Her site is a cornucopia of information regarding this litigation and has earned her the ire of SCO including claims that the company's slow sales of its Unixware operating system are a direct result of information posted on the Groklaw website.

The latest information posted on the Groklaw website includes IBM's Memorandum in Opposition to SCO's Objections to the Magistrate Judge Wells' Order of June 28, 2006. The June 28, 2006 Order is arguably a major blow to SCO's case against IBM.  At over 80 pages, the memorandum is not a short document.  However, it does provide an interesting window into this ongoing litigation and details how attempts to litigate a matter in the press may not be of benefit in the actual court proceedings. 

To this attorney, the memorandum is interesting from the way counsel for IBM details its objections, often times in very plain, simple and straightforward language.  One rather humorous example of this language found on page 2 of the memorandum is the statement "…  an error is clearly erroneous where it strikes the reviewing Court as wrong ‘with the force of a 5 - week - old, unrefrigerated dead fish’."(emphasis added)

 
For those of us who have "been there, done that" the memorandum lays out IBM's objections in a straightforward and detailed manner.  What the ultimate resolution of this case will be no one knows; however, I think that all attorneys can find something of interest in these proceedings.