We’ve been talking about Twitter here for a while now, going back to late 2008. For most of that time, the response from 90% of you has been “Umm… what??” But with Oprah, Ashton Kutcher and Shaq now bringing Twitter into the mainstream, or at least close to it, I think that Twitter may be reaching the “tipping point” — even in the slow-moving world of law.
Don’t get me wrong. There are many things about Twitter that bug me on a daily basis: self-proclaimed “social media experts” trying to tell the world (or sell to the world) how Twitter must or must not be used; terrible, Elmer Fudd (or is it Tweety bird?)-sounding names for everything Twitter-related (the fad now is for all applications and terms to be named something like “Twendz,” “Twibes,” “Tweople,” etc.); and the inevitable posts from people about being stuck in traffic, getting out of the shower, and so on that make you feel stupider for having spent 10 seconds reading them, and which are brilliantly and ruthlessly satirized in this video:
Having said all that, however, Twitter does have a growing number of users who, in my opinion, consistently add value and are great sources of information and insight for securities and corporate litigators. Here are my 15 People All Securities and Corporate Litigators Should Follow on Twitter, in alphabetical order:
- @amlawdaily – The American Lawyer’s feed of daily legal business news and analysis of leading law firms. Reporters such as Alison Frankel, Zach Lowe and Andrew Longstreth consistently deliver some of the best securities litigation-related news.
- @astarita – Mark Astarita, a partner at Beam & Astarita. Mark started the SECLaw.com blog way back in 1995, and writes at that blog and now on Twitter about securities and commodities law, including corporate finance, public offerings, stock broker regulation, securities arbitration.
- @brocromanek – Broc Romanek, the editor of TheCorporateCounsel.net blog which dates back to 2002 (and the Mayor of Blog City), writes and comments on corporate and securities law.
- @clusterstock – Clusterstock is a financial blog that is one of the “verticals” that make up Henry Blodget’s Business Insider. Reporters including John Carney and Joe Weisenthal crank out great stuff daily.
- @complianceweek – After quietly staging a coup and snatching the “Twitterer-in-chief” position away from publisher Scott Cohen, Compliance Week editor Matt Kelly provides excellent comments and links on corporate compliance and risk.
- @dougcornelius – Doug Cornlius, Chief Compliance Officer for a real estate private equity company and author of the excellent Compliance Building blog, writes and comments here on compliance, SEC and Web 2.0 issues.
- @footnoted – MIchelle Leder, author of the terrific Footnoted.org blog, comments here on the nuggets of gold she finds buried in SEC filings.
- @fpileggi – Francis G.X. Pileggi, partner with Fox Rothschild and author of the popular Delaware Corporate and Commercial Litigation Blog, writes here about happenings and trends in Delaware corporate litigation.
- @irwebreport – Dominic Jones, editor of IRWebReport.com, fearlessly takes on all comers in the IR industry here and on his blog, addressing issues such as Regulation FD and disclosure.
- @kevinlacroix – Kevin LaCroix, the hardest working man in the D&O business, and author of the amazing D&O Diary blog. I would call Kevin’s work on the D&O Diary “prolific” but that doesn’t really do it justice — what word comes after “prolific?” Kevin writes here about D&O liability issues.
- @Madoff_Watch – What would it look like if a major legal publishing company devoted its resources to creating a Twitter feed focused only on Bernard Madoff? It would look like this. Very useful for those following the Madoff scandal and aftermath.
- @ProvidedHowever – Before there was Kevin LaCroix, there was Mike O’Sullivan. Mike was a law blog pioneer with his CorpLawBlog that he wrote from 2003-04. As of April 2009, Mike is writing again at his Provided However blog and here about issues encountered by corporate lawyers.
- @retheauditors – Francine McKenna, editor of the re: the Auditors blog, provides the inside scoop on what’s going on with the Big 4 accounting firms. It is served straight up, with no chaser.
- @Sec_News – News feed provided by the SEC. No more, no less.
- @SecuritiesD – What would it look like if a former SEC Enforcement attorney and securities litigation partner spent all day looking for and publishing news of interest to securities litigators? It would look like this feed from Securities Docket.
Thank you for including me in your list.
Bruce,
It’s an honor to be included in this super group. As an accountant by training, I feel like “Lawyer for a Day.”