I think its perfectly aright Kian, if you divert some of the prizes meant for law firmites in favour of law students since participation is significantly more by law students.

Also, can we get the ranks, as of now? This will tell us what criteria you are using and make the competition fair, more interesting and competitive and strategical too. :)

Hi,

Thanks for your input, will take on board.

I think it is still too early to say which bloggers are best, as many are still getting into the swing of things. Here’s a list of blogs so far, for easy digestion:

[url=http://www.legallyindia.com/latest-blogs\]http://www.legallyindia.com/latest-blogs\[/url\]

Suffice it to say, there have been many individual blog posts I and readers have personally enjoyed or found interesting.

The judging criteria will still be as before, although I expect they will need to evolve as more bloggers find their voice and different sub-categories of blogs crop up.

The main criteria, in no particular order remain: (i) quality of writing, (ii) interestingness of posts, (iii) popularity, (iv) has the blog developed its own voice, (v) originality and (vi) uniqueness of topics.

There have been a few humourous blogs, which have checked those boxes very well, and some more serious ones also.

I think once there are a handful of regular bloggers we can do a summary of how each one has performed so far.

Ultimately, the competition judging will in all likelihood also include a popular vote but the exact mechanics will need to be determined depending on how many there are, etc…

If you have any suggestions for criteria I have missed or anything else, please let me know.

Thanks,

Kian

ps: There is currently a technical issue which has caused “Let Me’s” latest blog to be only visible to registered users. We are looking into this to try and fix it as soon as possible, apologies for any inconvenience. In the meantime you can read the blog via this link as a temporary work-around:

[url=http://www.legallyindia.com/Let+Me/\]

http://www.legallyindia.com/Let+Me/\[/url\]

It might be ‘Let me’s’ own little fault.

There is one box which says that and he might have indavertently checked on it.

Hi Kian, being a lawyer i cannot complain if the money goes to a student.but i guess we are missing the point here.Its an open competition, right?lawyers who are participating here are doing it out of enthu and passion but the prize money would make anyone happy.its not a need theory here.if there are more student bloggers, its more likely they would win .i think it would be fair to let it be a competition.

Thanks anirban, that sounds reasonable. So if I understand correctly, it would be best if all prize funds are allocated to the best bloggers, irrespective of whether students or not?

That does make sense. Will take under advisement and implement if no objections…

Best regards,

Kian

ps: @box - it was definitely a technical fault at our end and not let me’s fault actually… Has now been fixed…

Yes! I think that would work fine if the blogging competition is declare an ‘open competition’.

And as far as I know, LI hasn’t got any blog by student organisation/ committee. So I guess that prize gets reallocated?

And another thing which would help law students atleast is a ‘certificate’…saying that ‘x’ student from ‘y’ year of ‘N’ law school (it has to be a ‘N’ law school :PPP) won the legal blogging competition organised by LI. Maybe, even a short 15 word descripton of the blog posts done could be mentioned.

Kian, please tell what ‘constitutes’ regular? Is once a fortnight cool?

Cheerio

Hi,

Once a fortnight is regular enough, but it is somewhat flexible which is why we did not fix an exact timeframe for what constitutes regular. Basically, apply the old lawyers’ cop-out of the “reasonableness test”, whatever that means.

There will be some certificate or other memento for winners, yes.

Cheers,

Kian

Dear Bloggers,

I have revised the prize categories slightly, which will be announced soon.

As previously explained, the competition rules will be updated so that law students and practising lawyers all compete against each other and for the same prizes.

The basic categories will remain, with some prizes having been increased slightly, and several new categories have also been added:

* Best blog (Rs 20,000 cash award)

* Runner-up blog (Rs 10,000)

* Top four highly commended blogs (Rs 5,000 each)

* Single best blog post (Rs 10,000)

* Best ‘serious’ blog and/or blog dealing with legal/social issues (Rs 10,000)

* Funniest/most entertaining blog (Rs 10,000)

* Readers’ choice award (Rs 10,000)

* Critics’ choice award (Rs 10,000)

The actual judging criteria are not yet finalised and depend on the progress of the competition, but I am envisaging putting together a small panel to judge as critics, which will be combined with popular voting.

Any volunteers and regular blog readers who would be interested in being on the critics panel, please contact me by direct message or by email at the usual address (see Contact link in the top menu).

Any thoughts/ideas/complaints/flames?

Happy blogging!

Kian

So this is how much a single blogger can make

Best Blog: 20k

Single Best Blog Post: 10k

Serious/Entertaining: 10k

Reader’s choice: 10k

Critics choice: 10k

So a blogger can actually win 60k straight. Right? Because nothing stops the best blog from also having the single best blog post, being the best from either serious/interesting category and also winning both reader’s and critic’s choice award.

Indeed Bihari Babuu, that is so.

Potentially even 70k, if a blog manages to bag both the funniest and the most serious blog in one… Though that is a tall order…

Do let me know if you think this is unfair or anyone has any other ideas.

Another thing I forgot to mention: popular voting will be carried out on a pre-compiled shortlist, which can be done either through nominations or editors choice or a combination of both. We’ll work out those details further down the line.

I can see it will be really really tough to pick any outright winner… Congratulations to all bloggers for great writing!

Kian

Kian, you are giving 10k for the best blog post and the runner- up blog! That will be a bit unfair on the runners up guy.

I think 5k for the best blog post will justify what the ‘greatness’ :) of what the post contributed to the competition.

Also 5k for the top four ideally suggests ‘doling out’ prizes to virtually everyone. What about 10k for the top two and 15k for the runners up? (That takes care of the mathematics bit).

And we also await the lip smacking goodies and internships you have promised/enticed us with. :)

That is a possibility.

Not sure it is ‘doling out’ exactly though - I think it will be really tight at the top and even choosing the best 6 bloggers will involve some very close calls.

A slightly amended suggestion based on what you said, to recap: 1st: 20k; 2nd: 15k; 3rd: 10k; and 4th: 5k.

I think best blog post is a nice category - maybe we could split into two best blog posts of 5k each.

I think it’ll still need a bit of work. Will try to revise and revert. Please let me have any suggestions in the meantime.

On goodies, nothing promised as yet, but have been looking into it a little - will try to do what I can.

I think legallyindia should seriously look for internship for blogging students as in india students take internships very seriously. internships are yearned by students like anything. foreign internships if possible will be loved by all.

Haven’t been able to blog much due to exams…

But, yes internships sound an excellent option for law students…Please do consider it, and when I mean ‘consider’, I mean seriously do consider it…Have no internships lined up and exactly knows how it feels…:-)

Hmm - is there any risk that this would prejudice against those bloggers who prefer to remain anonymous?

Or is every student ok potentially for them to be ‘outed’ as bloggers?

Also not sure whether firms would be up for it - I’ll ask around informally.

“Or is every student ok potentially for them to be ‘outed’ as bloggers”? Kian, could you please rephrase.

And maybe you could move beyond just law firms for internship because there is nothing which will entice a law firm to take a good blogger as an intern. Organisations similar to LI surely will want to hire the bloggers. What about the Lawyer? You still seem to have a good relationship with your previous employer. What say?

Firstly, having law students compete with lawyers will be a little unfair on the youngsters because you cannot have 20 year old yong law students competing with 40 year old lawyers. As far as I know the best known bloggers till now such as popat, poet and nandi reywal are all lawyers so please consider this point.

Secondly, I think you are having too many prizes and this competition might end up giving prizes to all. If you want to make this blogging competition some ‘real’ competiton I think you should reduce the prizes.

Thirdly, I think you are contradicting by having different crtics and readers prizes and then saying that the winners will be decided by a combination of both!

I will suggest something uniform and simple like this

Lawyer category

1.) Best blog- 20,000

2.) Runners up- 15,000

3.) Commendable blog- 5,000

4.) Best post (funny)- 5,000

5.) Best post (serious)- 5,000

Law student category

1.) Best blog- 20,000

2.) Runnersup- 15,000

3.) Commendable blog- 5,000

4.) Best post (funny)- 5,000

5.) Best post (serious)- 5,000

With this categorisation the max. someone can win is 30k which is reasonable and will not cut deeply into other deserving winners.

Hello,

Thanks for all your feedback.

Re: different categories

I see your point but actually legalpoet is a law student and neither legalpopat or nandiireywal are anywhere near 40, as far as I am aware. I do think that some of the student bloggers’ writing is easily on par with qualified lawyers’ and it can be an arbitrary distinction to divide students from recent graduates. I hope that makes sense.

If everyone is fine with fewer categories we can do that, up the prizes for each and reduce the numbers of runners-up.

Will have to do some thinking and some more discussions and will come up with a revised system.

Re: Poet

Rephrase slightly? What did not make sense about the phrase apart from slightly awkward construction?

Sss, LegalPoet:

Internships I can not promise alas but I will ask around outside of the usual suspects. Though I do not want to give anonymous bloggers a disadvantage against named bloggers, nor should bloggers censor themselves for fear of being outed or not getting an internship.

Please do keep sending feedback, is very helpful.

Best,

Kian

Kian, I feel the distribution suggested by you has a serious drawback: The best blog is very likely to be either critic’s or reader’s choice; be the best serious/ funny blog and also have the best post.

That’s a very likey 50k for one person! I hope something better can be arrived at.

i feel diiferent categories r better because lawyers have a chance to blog on law school life of past and the present job happenings whereas law students are restricted by experience of law school only. blogging is also about presentation of various ideas and law students are behind in this regard. i dont know how many lawyers and law students you are having but cateograisation is importnat.

Whats a serious blog v/s funny blog? “blogs” all in one go!

Dear Sir/Maam,

Can you please tell me that if a property is auctioned by UPFC then the property’s land use will automatically be converted into non-agriculture or not?? Do i have to get Section 143 done to it as in khatauni its showing agricultural but its been auctioned by UPFC so it will automatically be converted into non- agricultural land.

Please do reply to me as soon as possible.

Thanks & Regards,

Rishi Agarwal

(rishiagarwaldear[at-the-rate-of]gmail[dot]com)