Photo of Stephen McConnell

The ABA Journal has once again included us in its list of the top 100 blawgs (law blogs).  So we’ve got that going for us, which is nice. The ABA Journal has also once again invited readers to vote for their favorite blawgs.  If you want to vote for us, it would take you all of 20 seconds. Just click on here, enter a username, email address, and password to register, scroll down to the list of nominated blogs, find the Torts category, then vote for the Drug and Device Law blog.  And/or vote for any of the other fine blogs that help you do your bidness or that amuse you.

We’re in danger of becoming the Harold Stassen of blogs.  He ran for President many times, but never won.   Or maybe we’re like the soap opera star Susan Lucci, whose years of Emmy futility became a running show biz gag – until she finally won.

Bexis is a curmudgeon when it comes to the voting process. With the arrival of the first frost, he does his best Lionel Barrymore/Mr. Potter imitation, harrumphing how campaigning is undignified and beneath us.  Well, maybe it’s beneath him.  But the rest of us who sling prose on this blog are more than happy to electioneer a little bit, if only to point out how often this blog has explored emerging DDL issues with celerity and insight.  We analyzed Bartlett from several angles, accurately predicted its outcome, and conjured up ways to exploit its implications.  We (mostly Bexis) performed continual service to defense hacks everywhere by serving up multi-jurisdictional analyses on multiple topics.  Perhaps our scorecards saved you many hours of research and cogitation. We’re probably in your briefs – and we mean that in the most innocent, benign way.

We’re not big on making campaign promises.  Over the last couple of years, we’ve all heard some screwy vows, including guarantees that everyone will get a pony, or that the candidate will go “more rogue,” or that pantsuits would suddenly become more fashionable. Herman Cain took grief for saying he would veto any bill of more than three pages, but we actually kind of liked that one.

All that we promise is that we will keep doing what we’ve been doing.  We will keep looking for ways to help our clients win, and will share what we find.  So if you like your current DDL blog, you can keep it.  How could we possibly get in trouble by making a promise like that?

Earlier we likened our chief blogger to Mr. Potter.  But that is not remotely fair. Truth be told, he’s more like George Bailey.  Heck, all that George Bailey did in It’s a Wonderful Life was save his brother’s life and help regular folks find decent, affordable housing in Bedford Falls.  Bexis designed this blog with the aim of saving the bacon of companies that make life-saving products, and of preventing our crazy litigation system from doing unnecessary damage to healthcare and scientific innovation.  We’d like to think that this blog has managed to make a contribution to those aims, and has done so with creativity, humor, and more than a little attitude.

So here’s your chance to reenact the end of It’s a Wonderful Life.  Show up here and vote, and show us how many friends we have.  Plaintiff lawyers like to brag about their victories and how they really ‘rang the bell.’ But in this holiday season, we’d prefer to think that every time a bell rings, a plaintiff lawyer loses a meritless case, or a court sees its way to preemption, or at least Dr. Parisian gets excluded on Daubert grounds.  Or maybe we can dispense with the bell-ringing nonsense and leave it at this: every time a plaintiff lawyer loses a meritless case, an angel gets its wings.

Happy holidays – whether you vote for us or not.