ATB Reaches One-Year Anniversary

Dear Friends,

June 3 marked the one-year anniversary of The Advocacy Teaching Blog. Initially, the blog's founding contributors—Chris Behan, Charlie Rose and Hugh Selby—also comprised its entire readership. Today, although the blog is by no means a juggernaut in cyberspace, we've grown slowly and steadily. As of this writing, we have approximately 140 subscribers who receive e-mail copies of every blog posting. In addition, there have been nearly 14,000 separate page views of the blog. We have readers all over the world, from the UK to the Middle East to the Pacific Rim.

Best of all, we've had a steady stream of guest contributors who love advocacy teaching and write thoughtful pieces about it. These guest authors include judges, practitioners, NITA members and law school professors. Topics have included how to become an advocacy teacher, the use of courtroom technology, how to teach voir dire, the role of advocacy training in the law school curriculum, and many more.

We hope Year Two of the blog's existence continues (and enlarges) the trend of audience participation and guest contributions. As we've stated from the beginning, we believe the trial advocacy teaching community is a group of remarkably gifted and thoughtful people. All of us have questions about how to improve as teachers and advocates; many of us have experiences and insights that can help others. In a world of financial constraints, law school politics and geographical isolation from each other, we don't have enough opportunities to meet in professional groups to bond with each other and to share. On-line forums such as this blog can help to bridge gaps and create a "go-to" resource for questions, answers, thoughts and insights.

If you have not yet contributed a guest article to the blog, make a goal to do so in the coming year. It's as simple as writing an e-mail and sending it to cbehan@siu.edu. We'll edit it, format it and post it for you (all with your approval, of course). Even easier than that is to take a moment and add a comment to an existing article. As dedicated blog readers know, the comments are often the best part of a blog.

Thanks for being a part of this blog.

All the best,

 

Chris Behan

Charlie Rose

Hugh Selby