Recipe for a Blogroll

I have added a few more student blogs to my blogroll. They are as follows:

Transnational Law Blog (http://transnationallawblog.typepad.com/) This blog features various students, recent grads and others blogging about transnational issues. The blog has a nice look and wonderfully diverse viewpoints.

Mississippi College International Law Society Blog (http://mcsolils.blogspot.com/) Yes, this is a plug for my law school's International Law Society. The ILS was started last year by students at the school, and I love the fact that they are blogging about various transnational matters.

Wish I Would Have Known (http://wishiwouldhaveknown.blogspot.com/) This is a group blog that provides "advice from law students on how they would do things over." If only Al Gore had invented the Internet before I went to law school, I could have benefited from their solid advice.

Butterflyfish
(http://butterflyfish1.blogspot.com/) This blog is by an anonymous 2L/mother. It has a nice tone to it. Fun to read, with a hint of poignancy.

So these are four nice blogs. How, exactly, do I choose students blogs for my blogroll? Not very scientifically--I either like a blog or I don't. These four blogs, I like.

Of course, there are other law student blogs out there, but often they disqualify themselves from consideration. This is Law Career Blog after all, not Bar Crawl Blog (although that certainly would be an interesting blog). Or Crude Humor Blog (although to everything there is a season). No, the student blogs I add to my blogroll have to do at least one of several things.

First, they have to relate information about the law school experience that is meaningful. Insights, suggestions, gripes, whatever.

Second, they have to have good writing and be at least somewhat reflective. I think that if you are going to read something like a law student blog, it should add to and enhance your knowledge of law school in some way. Maybe it's just me, but "Wow, that party was awesome" does not tell me a lot, other than that the party was awesome.

Third, it has to get a PG-13 rating or better. You don't make partner by being enormously crass (well, maybe you do at some firms, but not the imaginary one where I'm Managing Partner). So über-crass student blogs get nixed. And there are a lot of über-crass student blogs. Some of them are very smart, and more than a few are very funny. But one of the most successful partners I ever worked for never, ever uttered a dirty word, not even h___ or d___. Seriously. Never. He was a very busy man, and he never crossed the G rating threshold with his vocabulary. And it was not because he was a prude or sanctimonious. He actually had quite the wicked sense of humor. The impression he gave--the implicit message I got from him, anyway--was that it was far more clever, and funny, and intelligent, to be creative and eloquent with your speech and humor than it was to be gutter-crude. That's not a bad message: crassness can never help you in your career, but it can certainly hurt you. So crass blogs are out, and clever/witty/thoughtful blogs are in.

Finally, I must of course disclaim any responsibility for future content on these blogs. Who knows? One or more of these bloggers might someday curse me to oblivion in a crass, obscenity-laden post. Although based on their blogs' content so far, I kind of doubt it.