2016 will be remembered in the history books for many reasons, some of them good:
- The much-anticipated return of the long-form census,
- Canadian women cleaning up at the Rio Olympics,
- Bob Dylan’s Nobel Prize win,
- The demise of Vine (we weren’t fans), and
- The first-ever female US presidential candidate.
And some of them not so good:
- The loss of great musicians, from Bowie to Prince to Cohen,
- The Zika virus,
- The refugee crisis,
- Terrible acts of violence in Orlando and Europe and beyond, and
- Basically everything else about the US presidential election.
After 11 months of these (arguably) high highs and (indisputably) low lows, we here at Stem are looking forward to spending December focusing on something that celebrates community, collegiality, and generosity: the Canadian Law Blog Awards, also fondly known as the Clawbies.
The 11th edition of the awards will see some big changes (more about that in a bit), but the basics of the awards process are the same as last year. There are only two rules, each of them equally important:
Rule No. 1: You can nominate a blog by:
- Writing a blog post nominating up to three Canadian law blogs you currently read, with a brief explanation of why you think those blogs deserved an award in 2016.
- Tweeting your nomination on Twitter, using the hashtag #clawbies2016
Rule No. 2: Do not nominate your own blog for a Clawbie. This is a season for giving and thinking of others. The beauty of our system is that when you nominate other bloggers, you’ll be taken into consideration automatically.
And that’s it!
And now for the changes. Since Steve published the first Clawbies back in 2006, the award categories have periodically evolved. This year will be no exception: we’ll be scrapping some categories that don’t seem quite as relevant as they once did, and introducing some fresh new ones that will allow us to really showcase the novel publishing going on in today’s blogosphere.
Most notably, we’ll be unveiling a new Hall of Fame designation that we’re pretty excited about — you’ll have to wait for the Clawbies winners announcement on New Year’s Eve to hear all the details on that one.
And so begins what is sure to be an indisputably good part of 2016, the 11th annual Clawbies. From now until end of day on Thursday, December 22nd, blog and tweet your nominations enthusiastically and thoughtfully, and encourage your colleagues to do the same.
We look forward to seeing those nominations come rolling in!
