“I am never as clear about any matter as when I have just finished writing about it.” James Van Allen (as quoted in inside front cover, The St. Martin’s Guide to Writing (1985)).

At any one time there are 60 million blogs infesting the internet and only 3% of them last for any appreciable time period.  So why clutter the web with another blog?  I am taking this on for personal reasons.  I have no intent to change the world, or garner a large audience.  My purpose is purely self interest.

I am writing this to teach myself.  No one else.  So this will be personal.  I find that putting my ideas on paper helps crystallize them.  It makes me think and work out ideas.  Ideas about trials pop into my head all the time.  During the fall semester at the law school I can use them for lecture topics.  But outside of that, I have no forum to articulate them.  Unless I make the effort to write them down and flush them out, I am afraid they will be lost.  So now I have an outlet to discuss them.

So what type of things will I write about?  I am not going to report on the local courts and legal proceedings. We already have wonderful blogs for this.  My good friend David Markus writes the Southern District blog.  Rumpole does a great job on the Justice Building blog.  And  Broward County has one as well.   They astutely cover the courts, the State Attorney, US Attorney and the public defenders.  It would be hard to do better than them and I have no interest in trying.  I will write only about things which interest me.

My project will involve all things related to actually trying cases.  The trial techniques, practices, psychology and everything impacting trials.  I wrote a book, Black’s Law, illustrating some of this and thus the title of this blog.  I would write another book (and have worked on one on and off for years), but it is too much work to write that type of book again.  I am not that dedicated.  A blog is much easier.  Writing is fun when you don’t have a deadline, a boss to please, and can pick any topic which captures your fancy.  I intend to take full advantage of that.