ABA solicits nominations for best legal blogs

The American Bar Association is soliciting nominations for its annual list of the 100 best legal blogs (a/k/a "blawgs").

In an email, Sarah Randag, the Web Editor of the ABA Journal asks persons to use the linked Blawg 100 Amici form to nominate a blog "that you read regularly [and] that you think other lawyers should know about." Persons are encouraged to nominate more than one blog. But -- as you might expect from a national lawyers' organization -- they have thought through a number of possible angles:

[P]lease know that we disregard amici from:

• Blawggers who nominate their own blawgs or blawgs to which they have previously contributed posts.
• Wives and husbands who nominate their spouses’ blawgs.
• Employees of law firms who nominate blawgs with their own firm’s branding.
• Public relations professionals in the employ of lawyers or law firms who nominate their clients’ blawgs.
• Pairs of blawggers who have clearly entered into a gentlemen’s agreement to nominate each other.

The Amici form asks for comments about the nominated blogs. There is a 500-character limit -- but this shouldn't pose a problem for dedicated Twitterers. Or is that tweeters? Twits?

The ABA asks nominators to keep these criteria in mind:

• We’re only interested in blawgs in which the author is recognizable as a lawyer or law student in the vast majority of his or her posts.
• The blawg should be written with an audience of lawyers or law students—rather than potential clients or potential law students—in mind.
• The majority of the blawg’s content should be unique to the blawg and not cross-posted or cut and pasted from other publications.
• We are not interested in blawgs that more or less exist to promote the author’s products and services.

Blog, er, blawg nominations are due by September 9.