Grits makes ABA Journal's list of top 100 legal blogs

I wanted to say "Thank you" to the editors at the American Bar Association Journal for naming Grits for Breakfast one of their "Blawg 100," their second annual compilation of what the publication's editors consider the nation's top legal blogs. I'm happy to say Grits made the cut last year as well, but the competition is getting stiffer. According to their announcement:

On our second annual list of the best legal blogs, just half of last year’s honorees make a return appearance.

What explains the high turnover? For one thing, every day new legal blogs are started, and some existing blogs—including some that appeared on last year’s list—cease to be updated regularly. Plus, some of the upstart blogs are just plain better than some that made the cut last year.

This year, blogs that aren’t updated at least weekly—no matter how interesting—often didn’t make the grade. We put a premium on blogs that broke news in 2008, or were among the first to provide trenchant analysis of one or more breaking legal news stories. We also gave props to bloggers who made the most of audio and video (in our new podcast category) or social networking applications.

Here's the full list of the ABA Journal's Top 100 Blogs, including many interesting-looking titles that are new to me along with quite a few old favorites. Go here to vote.

The ABA Journal editors organized their top blogs into multiple categories in which they're encouraging an online vote - what Scott Greenfield calls a "beauty pageant" - nominating Grits in their "Crime" category along with three blogs I read regularly and one that's new to me:

Fellow Texan and head honcho at the Harris County Criminal Lawyers Association Mark Bennett's Defending People deservedly made the list. Doc Berman over at the inestimable Sentencing Law and Policy made the cut, along with Greenfield at Simple Justice. Another non-attorney, New York Post photographer Steven Hirsch, rounds out the list with his Courthouse Confessions, which combines portraits of offenders with their stories told in their own words.

Vote for your favorite, and if you have a minute check out the blogs in other categories.