Posted by
NOTLEGALROADKILLYET on Saturday, September 30, 2006 2:40:22 PM
I've tried to figure out how in the world I made the top 10 townhall blogs. Here's what I think:
I didn't discover that there was a top ten until thursday night when I decided to google my pen name, "not legal roadkill yet." That was scary, but it lead me in a round about way to the blogatorium, which I have now bookmarked.
I run what I consider to be a regional political blog, and a statewide/national law blog.
With some exceptions, my political observations are regionalized, and some posts are so local that they apply only to my city (Colorado Springs), my Congressional District, (CO5), or my state.
The stuff I write on the courts is likely to have much broader appeal. Most people, liberals and conservatives alike, have a feeling in their gut that lawyers and judges are not their friends and seldom, if ever, act in their interest. The courts and their allies are out of control and they have allowed attorneys to be so out of control that I find it easy to either link to embarrassing stuff or write it myself. While I write from a Colorado perspective, I'd bet that the things I am describing in my two series, "designed to fail," and "a low risk attorney scam" are applicable to most states.
There are a couple of mechanical things I do which may accidently cause me to get more hits than I might otherwise deserve. First, I dislike long posts and think few folks read them all the way through. If I am trying to conduct a seminar on a subject, and make no mistake, my whole blog is intended as a seminar, I break the issue up into small, easily understandable chunks, that I sometimes call "building block posts." This allows me to pack a lot of optional material in a small post and link to it.
Currently, One of my most useful building block posts is on an obscure 1868 Supreme Court precedent,
Ex Parte McCardle. I must use it two or three times a week, most recently when
Nat Hentoff tried to claim that the Congress was attempting to defy the Supreme Court, the exact opposite of what is going on. By having a well researched hip-pocket building block post available, I was able to serve both lazy readers (like me) and those who wanted to thoroughly understand the issue, as the building block post has a link to the original source, in this case, about six pages of Supreme Court Opinion.
My two series of posts, mentioned above are so complex that if I tried to post all the information I know in one post, it would be 20 to 30 typewritten pages long and no one would read it. So, I am putting up about 500-1000 words each week. That means that I have folks, including lawyers, coming back every week to see what sacred legal ground I have desicrated that week.
Finally, I am, by nature, a helpful person. When Hugh suggested that folks blog, I tried to
impart the stuff I had learned to potential new bloggers. The whole thing is trial and error. As I thought of more stuff to add, I have added it. I am still learning and it will continue to grow. If I were to guess, that one post pushed me into the top 10.
If I didn't want you to try to push me out of the top 10 (and being number 10, I am an easy target), I wouldn't be writing this. My goal isn't to be a top blogger. It is to get the legal system fixed. So you see, I'm not even trying. We all benefit when there are many bloggers out there writing useful stuff in a readable style.