In which Publawyer introduces himself and wonders whether he should continue to refer to himself in the third person

Firstly, does the world need another blawg? I was initially suspicious of blogs, partly because they just seemed to be a platform for the very most self-opinionated to rant on and on, and partly because the word 'blog' seems so inelegant. It's fair to say that I still am fairly suspicious of most of them, but have found some of the legal blogs, or blawgs, to be very useful and interesting, which led me to consider whether I had anything worthwhile to contribute, rather than just lurking. This was also spurred on by Pupilblogger's retirement announcement. As I had found Pupilblog to be one of the best reads among all the blogs I wanted to even up the balance. Thankfully Pupilblogger appears to be still posting, for the time being at least, but I still think it could be time for me to jump in. Or maybe not, you can be the judge of that.

However, I didn't want to just launch something aimlessly, especially as there is apparently a blog born every half second although on checking this I find that it's actually now slowed down to a new blog about every 0.72 seconds. I want whatever I produce to have some value, so Publawyer was born.

To backtrack slightly, the good blawgs seem to split roughly into two categories (this a huge generalisation, but bear with me). Firstly, there are the 'experience' ones, like Pupilblog and Baby Barista. I doubt that most of my legal experiences will be of much interest to anyone, but I might slip some in along the way. No, I have decided to join the second group, those revolving around a particular area of law. While it has been discussed elsewhere that these tend to attract less interest than the first group that will probably suit me, at least while getting this off the ground. The particular area that I wish to focus on is (broadly) public law - which is half of the reason behind the rather feeble pun in the title. I know that Head of Legal covers much of this area, but hopefully I can approach things from a different angle so that there is room for both in the (ugh) blogosphere.

The other motivation is to address some of the legal issues that people often bring up in pubs (not that I spend too much time in them, you understand, it's purely for research purposes), which should also definitively explain away this blog's title. You know the ones I mean, someone demonstrates that the law is an ass by highlighting an absurdity from that day's Metro and I can only ever think up a decent response on the tube several hours later. Well now there's a space for these responses.

Now Publawyer must away to find an issue to pontificate on, but before that Publawyer wishes to leave you with some bastardised Shakespeare:

"Cry havoc and let slip the blogs of law."