Who’d a thunk it? It was just five months ago that I let loose against the ABA for leaving all personal injury blogs out of their ABAJournal Blawg 100 (see: Vote For Me In Blawg 100!! (Oh Wait, You Can’t)). And today I learn that my blog has popped up as their Blawg of the Week.

When the ABAJournal re-invented its web site last July, I welcomed their redesign with “terrific news feeds” and “a great new compendium of blawgs.” It was clear they had done their homework. (See: Welcome New and Improved ABA Journal)

This being the ABA though, I was a bit concerned that its focus would be waaay too much on BigLaw, and not enough on the small and solo firms that make up the vast majority of America’s law firms and that do much of the grunt work. I even wrote last summer:

The new ABAJournal also has a featured blawg each week. Let’s hope they don’t just focus on the big name A-listers from the ivory towers and appellate world, and present the occasional up-and-comers from the “Practical Blawgosphere” that are out there in the courthouses on a day-to-day basis.

So while I was disappointed that the entire personal injury bar, both plaintiffs and defendants, was left in the dust of its vaunted 100, it’s obviously refreshing to see that, perhaps, things can change.

And yes, I did make sure to copy the page, under the theory that this was just a screw-up or practical joke and it disappears tomorrow.

A final note for new visitors: If you’d like to see some of the greatest hits of the blog, click that link. And feel free to add it to your RSS feed. No extra charge.

It happened, ironically, with an April Fool’s Day post. I passed the one million mark in page views.

I’m not quite sure what to make of it, since I’ve never really been able to figure out from the stats what represents human eyes and what represents spider eyes. And I know that many stumble in here simply because they are doing image searches or have used the images in various forums and blogs. Another stat, “visitors” passed the 500,000 mark and “unique visitors” is approaching 300,000.

If I had to decide what the most important metrics were, however, I would say:

• The number of comments, because that means folks are reading the content, and they often add new dimensions to the original post. I’ve never calculated them, though I can see there has been a marked increase in the last two months. Seeing 5-10 comments on a posting is no longer unusual, and some have generated over 20.
• The number of favorable comments, which of course, isn’t quite the same as overall comments. I’m shocked, shocked I tell you , that some folks seem to have a knee-jerk reaction to personal injury attorneys, no matter what is written.
• The incoming links, because that also means people are reading and finding it useful to point others here. Technorati counts those for me, and I see 1,600+ incoming links. Of course that also includes spam blogs and double links coming in from some places.

But for whoever it is out there that has stopped by my tiny corner of cyberspace these past 17 months, I thank you. I’ve very much enjoyed doing this, and hope to continue as time permits.

A small upgrade to the blog this week; Posts can now be emailed to people on a daily or weekly basis.

The Reason: While I had assumed that most folks would get blog postings via RSS feed, I noticed in the past month many coming to the site because some of my posts were passed around by email. Specifically, there were four posts that dealt with expert witnesses that bought a lot of new traffic: I posted a piece of evidence from one trial, about RICO suits against Allstate and State Farm, and a response from one of the RICO defendants.

Since many of the new visitors for this, or other stories, may be unfamiliar with RSS, I’ve added an email option.

Privacy: While it may be really tempting to sell all those email addresses I get — I bet I can get almost a penny apiece for the 50-100 that I may gather — I think I can resist that veritable gold mine. So even if I can figure out how to access those email addresses, I won’t do anything with them.

Removal: If you sign up and decide after a week or a month that I am really annoying or posting nonsense, then you can say adios to me very easily. Each email gives you the option to remove yourself from the service.

David Lat’s Above the Law has a guest post from Ted Frank. Put up at 10:20 this morning, it has already generated a staggering 345 comments.

The subject? An assertion by Frank that Barack Obama, if elected, would get rid of the Social Security cap that is currently at $102,000. And that would cost BigLaw lawyers lots of dough.

Frank doesn’t say where the money should come from, of course, for Social Security. That is apparently something for the next generation to worry about. Fiscal responsibility isn’t really important when trying to woo voters from BigLaw.

But back to the main point. With this kind of a hit on its hands, will Above the Law move away from its many (many, many, many) posts on salaries at this place and that and focus more on substance?

We’ll see.

Update (2/27/08 @ 5:30 pm): The post has now generated a record number of posts, well over 500 and still going. A new post was added by Ted Frank on the subject: NY to… 147K? More About Barack Obama’s Tax Plan (Or: Time to make the donuts?)

The anonymous Editor of Blawg Review appeared today at ALM’s LegalTech New York trade show, where vendors are currently showing off the latest and greatest of legal gizmos, gadgets and doodads for parts of the legal community.

I was lucky enough to catch up with Ed at a bloggers breakfast before the show, thanks to a generous invitation from Monica Bay and friends at ALM. When I last saw Ed in November, he was staggering through the finishers area of the New York City Marathon, having run the race dressed as Gumby to conceal his identity. Readers may recall my description of him at the end of his 26.2 mile running tour of New York:

His face was smeared with Gumby green paint that ran and mixed both with sticky lime green Gatorade and with his own accumulated body salts, a nightmarish look that was lit up by the sun’s reflection off his heat shield. But his eyes were electric and ecstatic and shone through the gloppy mess, giving the volunteering medical staff all the information they really needed about his health.

And so today, camera in hand, I snuck up on him in an attempt to capture a picture of what those eyes look like. Alas, the energetic editor would not hold still, and was in the process of showing off his credentials when the camera shutter finally clicked a full second after the button was pushed. Which goes to show you why shutter-lag is such a big issue with small digital cameras.

When he disappeared, rumors flew of a sunset train ride up along the Hudson as he sought to explore others parts of New York.

As for the show, since my time was severely limited, I can’t really write much. But others can, and are. For running updates on the show, visit Law.com’s Legal Blog Watch.

Other sightings:

• Bob Ambrogi;
• John Bringardner;
• David Giacalone;
  

Prior sightings:

• Kimberly A. Kralowec;
• Ed sights himself and provides photo;