Terra Extraneus

• Part One
• Part Three

It appears that nobody is doing the very important work of maintaining a directory of Oklahoma law blogs. Ever eager to serve the community by meeting a need that no one else even knew existed, we at Terra Extraneus are stepping forward to host and maintain such a list. We have begun that directory on this page: Oklahoma Law Blogs.

What constitutes an Oklahoma law blog? No need to define it too narrowly, but surely at least these three criteria are appropriate:

• The blog addresses issues related to the law and practice of law in a significant portion of its content.

• The blogger is based in Oklahoma or has some obvious connection to our state.

• The blog is active. If it has not been updated in six months, we may arch an eyebrow. If a year has gone by, we may employ the strikethrough tool (or worse).

I have gone out in search of blogs that meet the above description. I am startled at how few active Oklahoma law blogs there are. I detailed my search methodology in Part One of this series. In this post I will list and comment on the six active law blogs I found on the Blog Oklahoma directory.

(1) Phosita: Phosita is the blog of the intellectual property firm of Dunlap Codding & Rogers, OKC. Phosita is the most impressive Oklahoma law blog I’ve come across so far. Phosita is written mostly by Douglas Sorocco, a distinguished lawyer and blogger and a recipient of the Journal Record’s 2008 Leadership in Law award. Phosita is a well-designed and well-written blog that has been around for a while. By the way, PHOSITA stands for “person having ordinary skill in the art.” It’s a patent law thing.

(2) Oklahoma Family Law: Tulsa attorney Dan Nunley writes the OK Family Law blog. Nunley practices in and blogs about divorce and other family legal issues. Nunley is a pretty faithful blogger, posting at least once or twice a month since December 2006.

(3) JMBzine.com: James Matthew Branum (“JMB”) is a 30-something solo practitioner. Branum’s blog is “dedicated to non-violent revolutionary change for peace and justice in Oklahoma and the world.” Peace AND justice — quite a tall order. Branum is a Mennonite and therefore a pacifist. Branum is pretty intense, but he also has a sense of humor. His blog header proclaims: “When Jesus said love your enemies, he probably meant, ‘Don’t kill them.’”

Branum is a prolific blogger. He has blogged about every other day since September 2003! I think it is fair to say that JMBzine is only peripherally a law blog; most of Branum’s posts are about politics and religion.

Rod Heggy reviewed Branum’s blog in 2006. Rod didn’t agree with much, and titled his review: “A Blog to Disagree With.” I also disagree with the doctrine of Branum and his church that Jesus’s teachings preclude the military and military action. However, I have a lot of admiration for Branum, from what I can discern by reading his blog. I admire Branum for deriving his political views from his faith rather than from self-interest, and for trying to be a person who makes a difference, rather than just another person taking up space. And, of course, despite disagreements on secondary doctrines, we are brothers in Christ, and that counts for a lot to me, as I know it does to Mr. Heggy. I’m guessing Branum is a fascinating person to know, and I look forward to meeting him one of these days.

(4) Attorney at Blawg: We can’t forget our old friend Dave Walker, who segued a couple of years ago from teaching in a public school classroom to lawyering in an OKC law office. I reviewed and recommended Dave’s personal blog, DaveTown, in 2006. Dave still writes DaveTown and occasionally posts to Attorney at Blawg, too. Dave practices at Beets McNaughton & Walker.

(5) Satellite Sky: Satellite Sky is written by Fred Roper of OKC, a former bankruptcy attorney who is now in-house. He is also a chess champion. Roper has been blogging since 2006. His blog is a lot less active this year (14 posts during the first seven months of 2008), but he’s still active.

(6) Terra Extraneus: Last, hopefully not least, there is our own little blog, Terra Extraneus, written by OKC attorney Rod Heggy and myself.

Interesting to note that of the six active law blogs found on the Blog Oklahoma directory, five are based in OKC and one in Tulsa. Is there not a single law blogger in Lawton, Stillwater, Enid, Bartlesville or Muskogee? Is there only one in Tulsa? Only five in Oklahoma City? I continue to be amazed.

I will expand my search for Oklahoma law blogs in Part Three of this series.

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Thanks to Michael Bates of BatesLine for linking to this post, and plugging our search for OK law blogs. Michael is one of Oklahoma’s premier bloggers, drawing more than 800 readers a day. I reviewed Michael’s excellent blog a couple of years ago here. His post should be a big help in tracking down more OK law bloggers.