ALUMNI PROFILE
Howard Bashman 89L
How Appealing still appeals
B Y A N D R E W FA U G H T
In 2002, a colleague at his Philadelphia law firm encouraged Dead and The Amazing Race — with his wife, Janice. “I’ll be Howard Bashman 89L to check out a new legal blog called blogging at the same time, and she’ll say, ‘If you were watching The Volokh Conspiracy, a platform for law professors around the show more carefully, you wouldn’t have to ask me what the country to weigh in on American jurisprudence. happened,’” he laughs. “It sounded pretty frivolous,” Bashman reflects 15 years As newspapers have closed or shrunk their coverage in a later. “Why should I be interested in law professors spouting constricting industry, Bashman has created a one-stop shop off about legal issues? Eventually, after several tries, I did take for court watchers. “I’m as a look at the site, and it turned out to be very interesting. And saddened by anyone when it still is today.” newspapers go out of busiThe eponymous blog, for founder and UCLA law profesness and stop covering the sor Eugene Volokh (whose brother and fellow contributor, courts, but there are other Alexander “Sasha” Volokh, is an Emory Law associate prothings that have cropped fessor), signaled Bashman’s own foray into the blogosphere. up in their place, online A career appellate attorney who runs a boutique firm in sources that I’ll link to Willow Grove, Pennsylvania, Bashman set out to create an often,” he says. online presence devoted entirely to news accounts of state and Eleven of the 13 federal federal appellate court rulings. appellate courts post audio Now in its 16th year and created only months after of oral arguments, whose Volokh’s blog, How Appealing has evolved into a must-read in links Bashman posts to the the legal world, drawing as many as 10,000 visitors per day. blog. He’s occasionally given It is largely an aggregator for online accounts of appellate law to puckishness, as was the decisions, but on a monthly basis, Bashman, who formerly case in penning a headline wrote a column for The Legal Intelligencer in Philadelphia, for a Sixth Circuit Federal publishes his own legal musings. “There are times when I Appellate Court decision stake out a position,” he says modestly. in Cincinnati. The court Nobody was more amazed than Bashman at the immediupheld in 2006 that a library ate success of the blog. “Thankfully, early on, other websites in Columbus, Ohio, could require patrons to wear shoes. began linking to it, and journalists who covered legal issues Bashman’s offering? “No shirt, no shoes, no literature.” began writing about it,” he says. “I was amazed in the beginNew York Times reporter Adam Liptak, a former lawyer ning how there was a really strong readership in courts and who covers the Supreme Court, wrote to Bashman expressing in universities and law schools. People were contacting me his gratitude for the blog. Liptak commented that he was “lost” through email to make sure that things weren’t evading my upon joining the newspaper in 2002. attention.” “I had no sources, few ideas, and no way to feel confident Eugene Volokh commended his protégé in a letter to the I was not missing important legal developments around the Washington Post in May, calling How Appealing “one of the few country,” Liptak wrote in a letter posted on the blog. “A month blogs I read each day — an invaluable source of breaking news.” later, like magic, How Appealing materialized. It immediately Sasha Volokh is also a fan. “I’m not aware of any other became, and has remained for me and countless other legal source out there that keeps tabs on the most interesting appel- reporters, an indispensable resource: comprehensive, reliable, late opinions from all the circuits,” he says. nonpartisan, enthusiastic, and good natured.” Sasha says the blog is particularly beneficial to students on In his pursuit of justice — and blog effectiveness — law reviews, “who need to figure out viable topics for their stu- Bashman abides by a guiding credo. “To the extent that I have dent comments. If a topic is the subject of frequent appellate a motto, it’s more or less: Don’t make people think less of you litigation, it’s probably a good topic to write a comment about.” than they would have thought of you before the existence of Bashman spends a few hours each day collecting news sto- the website,” he says. ries to post on the blog. He’ll often do so on his lunch break, when he returns home to watch a show — of late The Walking Visit Bashman’s blog at howappealing.abovethelaw.com.
EMORY LAWYER FALL 2017
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How Appealing, a widely read blog about appellate court rulings, is the brainchild of Howard Bashman 85L (above).