KLR Reports on $5.1 Million Dollar Verdict!

The Kentucky Law Review recently reported on the $5.1 million dollar verdict in Jefferson County. The KLR notes it is one of the highest awards in recent memory and links to the Courier Journal article, discussing the case. Click on the link to read the entire KLR review with a link to the article.

I would also like to remark on the recent changes to the KLR. Congratulations to Mike Stevens on the recent upgrades in style and layout. Nice paint job, Mike! Very impressive.  Keep up the good work.

Kentucky Law Review Rated in National Top Ten

Congratulations to Mike Stevens and his Kentucky Law Review for consistently being in the national top ten of the nation’s blogs.  This is quite an accomplishment.  You can read Mike’s well deserved summary of his blogs accomplishments, here.

Guest Author on TechnoEsq

I will be publishing a series of articles on Finis Price’s, TechnoEsq, which discuss freeware that I have incorporated into my solo law practice.  For those who don’t know, freeware is software that is available for download on the internet for free.  While there are certainly multiple offerings that perform the same function for free, my articles will deal with those that I have effectively incorporated into my law practice.

The first article titled, Scan to PDF has been posted, here.  It discusses the software that I use to convert standard scanned images into PDF format with a software program called Scan2PDF 1.5.  Other articles will discuss similar technology.

I want to thank Finis for the opportunity to write about my own passion for technology.  Click on the link to see my post.  While your there read about Finis’ own efforts to incorporate his background in technology and computers into his own law practice.

UPDATE: Post Regarding Justice Minton’s Appointment

Just after I published my post on Justice Minton’s election as the new Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Kentucky, I came across an interesting post by Mike Stevens at the Kentucky Law Review.  In my post I mentioned the political agendas and special interests that occupy the Supreme Court.  Well, Mike has an interesting post about the disagreements and internal disputes over the reappointment of Jason Nemes to the position of Administrator of the Office of Courts (AOC).  The article written earlier this month is an interesting look into the inner workings of the Supreme Court.  Read the entire post with links to the original article, here.

Trial Videos Offered Online

Finis Price at Technoesq.com just posted on his blog’s collaboration with the Kentucky Law Review to offer trial videos online. Finis describes it as follows:

TechnoEsq, in collaboration with Kentucky Law Review, is seeking to make available the trial videos of numerous newsworthy and interesting trials from across Kentucky. Every lawyer knows the benefit in watching how other attorneys work and present cases. Unfortunately, unless we take the time to attend a trial, we are relegated to hearing second-hand of the mistakes and successes of other litigators. Since we believe the lessons learned from these cases are invaluable and often too difficult to obtain, we are seeking out the trial videos for these cases, digitizing them and making them available to our viewers for educational purposes.

Amazing! I agree the value of such an offering is incredible. The good news? This is just further proof that lawyer blogs are at the forefront of advancing the legal profession into the 21st century. The bad new? This is further evidence of how far behind the times our third branch of the government is.

Good luck to Finis and Mike on this project. Click on the link above for the full story.

Powerful and Persuasive Article Regarding Professor Lawson Interview

The Kentucky Law Review reported on a Courier Journal interview with Professor Robert G. Lawson, initially posted on by the Elusive Justice Blog, titled an Example of Resistance to Change. You can read the KLR’s post here, with links to the full article and other interesting posts.

While not germane to tort and insurance law issues, I agree with Mike Stevens that the entire interview should be read. In my opinion, attorneys, regardless of their practice area, are obligated to speak up on important legal issues such as those discussed in the interview. Regardless of your own opinion we are ethically bound to at least join in debating this issue and addressing the questions raised. You should at least be aware of the problem. Not everything is as simple as it appears.

Happy New Year to the Kentucky Law Review

Mike Stevens of the Kentucky Law Review has recently posted some kind words about the Kentucky Tort and Insurance Law Journal here. Mike was one of the first of our kind to take his well respected and highly useful Louisville Law Wire to the Blogosphere. Since then, the Kentucky Law Review has replaced many attorneys’ local newspaper.

Mike imparted his own resolutions for the New Years in his post, Looking Ahead, Looking Back, Looking at Resolutions. In order to understand Mike’s valuable service to the legal community you need only look at a few of his accomplishments for 2007, which include;

* 150,000 visitors to the Kentucky Law Review/Blog site.
* In 2007, we exceeded 4000 actual posts.
* KLB has 425 subscribers to the site via email and RSS.
* One “theme” change for all the blawgs.
* Kentucky court report aka KYCases.com was in the top ten blawgs during December and has over 600 email subscribers!
* Louisville LawWire blawg was added to simply post the lawwires each week and nothing more.
* And all FREE for you. Much thanks to our volunteer editors who rarely require me to bring out the whips.

These numbers alone are impressive. More importantly, they are indicative of the viability of posting legal related content in an easily accessible and most importantly, free format. Despite his newly mentioned time constraints, I hope Mike will continue to lead the way for other Kentucky Bloggers. I know he has been a source of inspiration when my own Blog seemed like a useless unappreciated exercise in grandiosity.

If you’ve not found your way to one of Mike’s Blogs, click on the links to the right and take a look around. What you’ll find is truly special.

New Changes for 2008!

2008 brings some new changes to the blog. First, I have changed the name to Kentucky Tort and Insurance Law Journal. I have dropped the use of the term blog, not because I take issue with the word or because I don’t fancy myself a blogger. Given that my posts are not posted everyday and that the topical nature of the blog is governed more by scheduled occurrences than day to day issues, I thought the word “journal” more closely fit with what it was I did here. Second, the domain name is now “www.kytortjournal.com.” I am told by Blogger that it will continue to redirect readers to this domain, however, I anticipate that you may need to redirect your feeds to the new domain at some point. I am not sure yet what affect this change will have on feedburner subscriptions or feeds. My feedburner feed has not changed, yet. With any luck it won’t. However, if it does I’ll post and let you know what you might expect or need to do to continue to receive up to date posts.

Second Annual Kentucky Blogger Gettogether a Success!

I was fortunate to be invited to the second annual Kentucky blogger and online journalists’ (for you Michael) bull*&^%together on May 10, 2007. Our excellent host was Diana Skaggs of the Divorce Law Journal. Michael Stevens of the Kentucky Law Review and Kentucky Cases was present as were two relatively new bloggers. Trevor Wells of SCOKY made his first appearance, as did Finis Price of TechnoEsq, which I quickly found out is his blog’s attempt to discuss the integration of technology into his new solo practice.

I thoroughly enjoy these gettogethers, too much some would say. But the chance to meet others who have chosen to torment their lives by blogging about the law always leaves me with a new found respect for what we do and perhaps a better appreciation of my own blog. My only complaint is we don’t get together more often. I hope my colleagues feel the same and that they continue their blogs, journals, reports or reviews for a very long time.

My thanks again to our excellent host Diana Skaggs. As usual the food and drink were fantastic, the view wonderful, and the conversation stimulating. Its bad enough we do this for free, but Diana opens her home and spends her own money to entertain hooligans like me.

I recommend Finis’ blog and I have added a link to his site. I hope you will continue to read and comment on my colleagues’ blogs as well. Your participation and words of encouragement are ultimately the only thing that keeps this technological phenomenon going.

Mass Tort Litigation Blog

I recently came across the Mass Tort Litigation Blog, an offering by Professor Byron Stier of the Southwestern Law School and Professor Howard Erichson of Seton Hall Law School. A member of the Law Professor Blogs Network it is full of articles specific to mass torts and class action. It includes posts on recent cases, developments and issues, as well as, resources, and publications dedicated to the topic. I found it to be a very interesting and informative on an ever increasingly important area of tort litigation. I have added the blog to my links.