Now is the time that we, as consumers of media, are inundated with year end best-of lists. So, just as we did last year, we here at Abnormal Use have collected our favorite posts of this past year – our second full year of existence. If you’ve followed us from the very beginning, you know that we’ve posted at least every business day these past two calendar years. That’s a lot! Looking back over several hundred posts this year, it was difficult to choose our favorites. But, dear readers, the ones we enjoyed the most are linked for you below, along with their author and publication date. Fill yourself with nostalgia, just as we have, and revisit these entries from 2011.

The Stella Liebeck McDonald’s Hot Coffee Case FAQ (Jim Dedman, January 25, 2011)

Marketing vs. The Market: A Debate About Bilingual Warnings (Frances Zacher, February 2, 2011)

Songs about Lawyers, Judges, and Attorneys (Jim Dedman, March 14, 2011)

Star Wars Prequels Unreasonably Dangerous and Defective, South Carolina Federal Court Finds (Jim Dedman, April 1, 2011)

TV Review: TNT’s “Franklin & Bash” (Laura Simons, June 1, 2011)

Sweet Coffee: The Next Great Documentary? (Nick Farr, June 14, 2011)

Film Review: Susan Saladoff’s “Hot Coffee” Documentary (Nick Farr, June 27, 2011)

The Perils of Making Pop Culture References at Depositions (Jim Dedman, August 8, 2011)

Religion and Products Liability Square Off in New Jersey (Nick Farr, August 11, 2011)

Google Crashes – Literally (More on the Driverless Car Dilemma) (Frances Zacher, August 24, 2011)

New Jersey v. Henderson: A Self-Critical Look at the American Judicial System (Steven Buckingham, August 30, 2011)

The Life and Death of R.E.M. (Jim Dedman, September 26, 2011)

Dedman on Dedman v. Dedman (1927) (Jim Dedman, November 1, 2011)

I Want My Halloween (Steven Buckingham, November 3, 2011)

30th Anniversary: “Absence of Malice” (Mills Gallivan, December 13, 2011)

The Ultimate Malpractice: “Miracle on 34th Street” (Steven Buckingham, December 14, 2011)

As readers of this site are aware, we here at Abnormal Use occasionally publish interviews with law professors and practitioners on products liability and litigation. In 2011, we published a total of 18 such interviews – a bit more than the eleven we published last year, our first year of existence. Today, we list all of our 2011 interviews and provide links back to them:

Jeff Richardson of the iPhone J.D. blog (January 11, 2011)
Michael Sardo, Producer of USA’s TV Show, “Fairly Legal” (January 18, 2011)
Catherine Sharkey of New York University (March 7, 2011)
James Daily and Ryan Davidson of The Law and the Multiverse Blog (March 8, 2011)
Robert W. Cort, Carolyn Shelby and Christopher Ames, Makers of the 1991 Film, “Class Action” (March 15, 2011)
Larry D. Thompson, Author of “The Trial” (March 28, 2011)
Brian Dale Alle Strouse of The Lawsuits, a band (April 4, 2011)
Ted Frank of the Center for Class Action Fairness (April 25, 2011)
Adam Avery, Brewer of Collaboration Not Litigation Ale (May 3, 2011)
Jennifer Wriggins of the University of Maine School of Law (May 5, 2011)
Mark-Paul Gosselar and Breckin Meyer of “Franklin & Bash” (May 31, 2011)
Chuck Brodsky, Songwriter (June 7, 2011)
Megan Erickson of The Social Networking Law Blog (June 29, 2011)
Bob Dorigo Jones, Founder of the Wacky Warning Labels Contest (July 14, 2011)
Ernest Svenson a/k/a Ernie The Attorney (July 20, 2011)
J. Stanley McQuade of Campbell University School of Law (August 10, 2011)
Tamara Piety of The University of Tulsa (August 23, 2011)
Mark Waid of Marvel Comics (September 20, 2011)

As 2011 draws to a close, we’d like to take this opportunity to thank the individuals listed above for being kind enough to grant the interviews. We think our site is all the better for it. And, if you missed any of the interviews, take a look!

For the second week in a row, we feature the cover of She-Hulk, this time issue #19, published not too long ago in 2007.  On the cover, we see the supervillain known as The Leader, clad in a business suit and lodging an objection, properly no less! Behind him, we see two others, presumably lawyers, and we think the one on the right may be Jennifer Walters, the alter ego of She-Hulk. The Leader seems to be taking his objection very seriously.  We would probably sustain it!

Big news this week at Gallivan, White, & Boyd, P.A.!  Congratulations go to Cory Ezzell, who was elected partner of the firm last week.  Also, partner and Abnormal Use editor Jim Dedman will be moving to GWB’s Charlotte, North Carolina office, which opened earlier this year. (Don’t worry; he’ll still be blogging).

Josh Camson at Lawyerist offers this post entitled “Three Lessons Lawyers Can Learn from The Muppets.” But what can Muppets learn from lawyers?

The South Carolina Supreme Court has ended associate membership in the South Carolina Bar.

Don’t forget! You can still vote for Abnormal Use in the ABA Journal Blawg 100!  If you like what we do, please consider voting for us. You can do so here. Voting ends on December 30, so we encourage you to cast your vote before you leave for the holidays!

Kudos to Maxwell Kennerly of the Litigation and Trial blog for his recent post entitled “The Three Types of Practicing Lawyer Blogs,” which we mentioned previously here.  We’ve been meaning to respond to it in detail for some time. Kennerly accurately characterizes the different types of practicing lawyer blogs, which he divides into three main types:  the mainstream, the personalities, and the marketers.  (He was kind enough to place us into the second category).  Here at Abnormal Use, we enjoy blogging about legal blogging, and Kennerly’s post got us thinking about these different types of blogs and how practicing attorneys find the time to engage in blogging to various degrees.

We continue to marvel at those bloggers that Kennerly places into “the mainstream,” which he describes as a group of blogs engaging in news gathering, objective reporting, and the collection of legal links and analysis.  These are blogs like SCOTUSblog (whose recent acquisition by Bloomberg prompted Kennerly’s post in the first place) and even Howard Bashman’s How Appealing, the grandfather of mainstream legal blogs.  How practicing lawyers can assemble the material for these mainstream blogs is quite a feat:  they cannot miss a beat or news development occurring in the subject matter they cover.  If they do so, their credibility is threatened and so, they must constantly dedicate resources to the blogs to provide the latest news on their chosen subject matter.

That’s a Herculean task when one is trying to simultaneously run a law practice.  We suspect there are a host of lawyer writers out there who once intended to engage in legal mainstream blogging but burnt out quickly due to the high demands of the enterprise.  We offer our most sincere kudos to those who are able to maintain such blogs.

It’s a bit easier to run a “personality” blog, as contributors to such enterprises can pick and chose their topics as they please.  They need not fret about objectivity.  They can inject a bit of editorial style – even sarcasm sometimes – into their posts. However, personality blogs still face the difficult challenge of providing timely, interesting, and engaging commentary on the area of law they have chosen to discuss.  Here at Abnormal Use, we have posted every business day since January of 2010.  That’s no small feat, even if we do say so ourselves.  We have a dedicated staff of thoughtful writers here without whom this enterprise would be impossible.  We are not sure that we could engage in the type of personality blogging we do if there were fewer contributors, or if there were but one contributor.  In sum, there is strength in numbers.

Finally, the marketing blogs that Kennerly discusses are, as he suggests, sometimes irksome.  Somewhat spam like, they clutter the blawgosphere with a curious melange of general related news and lawyer advertising.  We don’t have much to say on those types sites or whether they are written by lawyers or marketing professionals.

The thing that interested us most about Kennerly’s post was his suggestion that personality blogs tend to engage each other more frequently than any other type of blogs.  To us, that’s part of the point of the blawgosphere. We enjoy engaging in discussion with other lawyers and law blogs.  As we previously noted, this enterprise has allowed us to meet other lawyers across the country and discuss not just blogging itself but also substantive legal issues.  We are always looking for more law blogs to read or bloggers with whom we can discuss products, or even general legal issues.

That, we think, is the chief advantage of blogging as marketing. Bloggers find themselves in discussions, friendly debates, and conversations with other lawyers across the nation they never would have met otherwise. Those conversations lead to meetings in person at conferences and the like, and often, transform into actual friendship.  That’s not such a bad thing.

We’ve previously mentioned here and here that the Marvel Comics character She-Hulk is a practicing attorney. We’re not entirely certain what is occurring on the cover of She-Hulk #21, depicted above and published not too long ago in 2007.  It appears, though, that She-Hulk has found herself in an argument with another lawyer in a conference room, perhaps at a mediation, perhaps at a deposition. We wonder if there are any local court rules that deal with confrontations with superheros at such events, though, and whether superheros are permitted to wear their costumes to court functions in lieu of more formal attire.

We here at Abnormal Use dig old pictures of court buildings. You might recall that we once recommended the Shorpy photo blog, which posts hi res photos of scenes past, usually a century old.  This week, that blog posted a photograph of the Pulaski County Courthouse in Little Rock, Arkansas taken in 1905. Check it out here. If you like what you see, you’ll enjoy losing yourself in that site and seeing all the old photograph in its impressive archives.

Don’t forget! You can still vote for Abnormal Use in the ABA Journal Blawg 100!  If you like what we do, please consider voting for us. You can do so here.

Many thanks to Walter Olson, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and the founder of the Overlawyered blog, for speaking in both Greenville, South Carolina (the location of the Abnormal Use home office) and Charlotte, North Carolina (home of another of our offices) this past week.

Finally, if you’re on Twitter, come say hi to us there! You can chat with us on that site by going here.

As we’ve previously mentioned, our editor Jim Dedman is now contributing one monthly post to the North Carolina Law Blog.  This very morning, his third submission was published at that site.  The topic: “Can Emoticons Beat the Hearsay Rule?” Yes, you read that correctly.  He is actually analyzing where those little smiley faces people append to the end of their texts or instant messages might be helpful in a hearsay inquiry. His conclusion: They actually might help (maybe, sometimes). Here’s an excerpt of the new post:

Carole Gailor of Raleigh, North Carolina recently spoke at a North Carolina Bar Association conference on the rules of evidence as applied to electronically generated information. In so doing, she remarked upon the authentication and admissibility hurdles that litigants must confront when attempting to introduce electronic or digital evidence, such as emails, computer generated reports, social media profiles, and other such information. However, she made a stray remark which prompted the law nerd in me to take particular notice. Ms. Gailor noted that an emoticon might, in fact, assist in the analysis of whether a digital piece of evidence is admissible.

As a preliminary matter, we could turn to Wikipedia or Urban Dictionary or the like to find a formal definition of the term “emoticon.” But that’s not really necessary, is it? But everyone knows that they are the little smiley or frowny faces – or sometimes far more complex textual graphics – utilized by writers on the Internet to convey all sorts of present emotions.

But why bother with a lay definition? A number of courts have already tackled the term.

Read the rest of the post here.

Today is an anniversary of sorts.  One year ago today, on December 6, 2010, we published what was to be a ground breaking, at least for us, interview with the actor who played one of pop culture’s most flamboyant attorneys, Jackie Chiles, the television lawyer from “Seinfeld.”  The character, now infamous, was played by actor Phil Morris.

Last year, he was kind enough to agree to an interview. Needless to say, we were overjoyed.

It took some doing.  We spent six months courting his agents and representatives to arrange the interview.  As fate would have it, Morris was reviving the “Seinfeld” character for a series of Internet videos on Funnyordie.com. Accordingly,  he was looking to promote himself on Internet websites and blogs.  We are sure glad he was. It was a perfect storm.

That success emboldened us a bit, and throughout 2011, we sought out additional interviews with pop culture figures.  In January, we ran an interview with Michael Sardo, the executive producer and creator of the USA television series “Fairly Legal.”  In March, we ran an interview with the writers and creators of the 1991 film Class Action.  We even interviewed Mark-Paul Gosselaar and Breckin Meyer, the two leads from the TNT program “Franklin & Bash,” although for that one, we must confess we were part of a larger press conference call rather than a one-on-one interview.

Spoiler Alert: We have some big things in store for you in 2012.

But it all started with Morris.  We even asked him about one of our favorite topics, the McDonald’s hot coffee case:

AU: What about people filing these lawsuits for burning themselves on hot coffee?

MORRIS: Well, we’re so litigious in this society, too much. It’s way beyond the pale. So that’s where I kinda jump off from Jackie. I certainly wouldn’t put stock in a lot of that stuff. I think, it’s just, we’ve gotten away with way too much here in the United States in terms of the legal ramifications of everything. I think, again like I said, beyond the pale. Jackie is an opportunist. So anything like that is manna for him. But personally, I think we’re really hurting ourselves and shooting ourselves in the foot. Not only are we giving our legal system a bad name, but we’re abusing it! We’re misusing those bits of legal power that we have – we’re fortunate enough to have in this country. It kind of drives me crazy.

So, if you would, take a look back at our fateful interview with Phil Morris from one year ago today.

(And while you’re at it, check out this brand new interview Morris gave to The Onion AV Club just last week!)

As we briefly mentioned this past Friday, we here at Abnormal Use were honored last week by being named to the 2011 ABA Journal Blawg 100 for the second year in a row. We couldn’t be more pleased, and we thank you all for your support. We’re very excited about it, so much so that we wanted to take this brief opportunity to share our thoughts.

This project would certainly not have been possible without the support of our firm. We have a handful of different writers, all with different styles and interests, and we think that is at least part of what makes this site successful. Kudos go to our two principal authors Phil Reeves and Stephanie Flynn, as well as our associate contributors: Steve Buckingham, Nick Farr, and Frances Zacher.  We also thank former contributors Laura Simons and Mary Giorgi for their work on the site.  Without that group, there would be no blog here.

As a part of the ABA’s list, we’ve been placed in the Torts category with five other stellar legal blogs, including our friends Walter Olson of Overlawyered, J. Russell Jackson of Jackon on Consumer Class Actions and Mass Torts, and Jim Beck, Will Sachse and Steve McConnell of the Drug and Device Law blog.  That’s great company, adding to the honor.

We were pleased to see some of our other favorite sites make the list in some other categories, as well, including:

Stephanie Kimbro’s Virtual Law Practice blog

Keith Lee’s Associate Mind blog

Rick Hasen’s Election Law Blog

James Daily and Ryan Davidson’s The Law and the Multiverse blog

Kevin Underhill’s Lowering the Bar blog

The Volokh Conspiracy

Jeff Richardson’s iPhone J.D. blog

Eric Goldman’s Technology & Marketing Law Blog

In his own post commenting on his well deserved receipt of the award, Jeff Richardson remarked: “[O]ne of the best parts of this annual list is that it always helps me discover great sites that I had not run across before . . . .”  This is so true. There are always new blogs to be discovered on the list, as well as familiar sites we are long overdue in revisiting.

Finally, a bit of electioneering.

The editors of the ABA Journal have asked that their readers vote upon their favorite blogs in each category.  As noted above, we have been placed in the Torts category with five other excellent blogs. They are all great sites, and we encourage you to read them regularly.  But the editors have asked people to vote, so we must bring that your attention, right?

If you enjoy what we do here at Abnormal Use, we would greatly appreciate your support and humbly request that you cast your vote for us.  Here’s how:

Plug this website into your browser:

http://www.abajournal.com/blawg100

You will be prompted to register with the ABA Journal website.  It’s takes just a moment, as all you need to do is create a username and  password.

Once you have completed the registration, you will be taken to a page with a large logo at the top with twelve categories of blogs listed below it.

Click on the category labeled “Torts.”

Scroll down and find the entry for Abnormal Use.  Click the “Vote Now!” next to the Abnormal Use logo entry.

We’ll let you know how that turns out for us. In the meantime, remember that you can follow Abnormal Use on Twitter here and Facebook here.

We are very honored to note that yesterday we received two prestigious awards in the legal blogsophere. First, we were named by the ABA Journal to this year’s ABA Blawg 100.  We’re very pleased to be included in the Torts category with such blogging greats as Eric Turkewitz of the New York Personal Injury Law Blog, Walter Olson of Overlawyered, Bill Marler of Marler Blog, J. Russell Jackson of Jackson on Consumer Class Actions & Mass Torts, and Jim Beck, Steve McConnell, and Will Sasche of the Drug and Device Law Blog. As you may recall, we were also named to this list last year, and one year later, we couldn’t be happier to be recognized in this fashion once more.  It was a big day yesterday here at AU HQ.

But that’s not all. We also learned today that Abnormal Use has been named one of the Top 25 Torts Blogs by the LexisNexis Litigation Resource Community.  We are in some prestigious company among those nominees, as well, and we’re very pleased and honored to be included as a part of that list, as well. As we said, it was a big day.

We’ll talk a bit more about these honors in this coming Monday’s post, but we wanted to take this opportunity to thank all of you, our dear readers, for your support. We plan to give you all another year of this blogging thing in 2012, and we’re looking forward to doing so. Special thanks must go out to our contributors Steve Buckingham, Nick Farr, and Frances Zacher, as well as alumni Mary Giorgi and Laura Simons. We simply could not do this without them. If you follow the links to both the ABA Journal and Lexis Nexis Litigation Resource Community’s pages, you’ll see that both sites are calling for votes for your favorites of those listed.  We’d very much appreciate it if you would consider us for that additional honor.

Subject change: Apparently, there is a rapper named “Lawyer Mike.”  See here for a video.

Quote of the week: “I’m very disappointed in the fact that somebody riding their bike in February crashes on the ice and gets $100,000. It absolutely reminds me of the case involving the lady who ordered hot coffee at a McDonald’s and spilled it on her lap. That’s pretty much it. You know it’s hot coffee when you order it. And you know riding a bike at night, in winter, is a little dangerous,” John Cornish, the president of the Florence Park District said in this piece by David Erickson of The Missoulian on November 29.

Friend of the blog Walter Olson, the founder of the Overlawyered blog and a senior fellow at The Cato Institute, will be speaking right here in Greenville, South Carolina next week.

Walter will be giving a speech entitled “Law Schools and an Overlawyered America,” based in part on his new book, Schools for Misrule: Legal Academia and an Overlawyered America (Encounter Books, 2011). Prior to joining the Cato Institute, Walter was a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, and he has been a columnist for Great Britain’s Times Online as well as Reason. His writing appears regularly in such publications as The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and The New York Post.

Here are the specifics:

When: Wednesday, December 7, 2011, 12:00 p.m. to 1:00 p.m.

Location: Womble Carlyle Sandridge & Rice, PLLC, 550 South Main St, Suite 400, Greenville, SC 29601

Sponsored by the Greenville chapter of The Federalist Society, the event has been approved for 1.0 hour of CLE credit in South Carolina.  Admission is free for the event.