I've been waiting a long time for "Patience" to get bumped from a list of virtues.

When Peter Black hosted the Twitter-centric Blawg Review #178 in September 2008, the microblogging service was something of a novelty, and particularly so in the legal community. Since then, Twitter's user base has grown at an astonishing rate, 1,382% between 2008 and 2009 according to Nielsen Online. In the legal blogosphere also in the nine months since Blawg Review #178, Twitter has moved from the bleeding edge of technology to a spot a little further back on the blade. As a group, legal bloggers tend to be ahead of the curve; within that group, however, Twitter is mainstream enough that I would hazard a majority of us have considered it and made a decision to participate or not. In short, you don't hear many voices anymore in the blawgosphere asking "What's this 'Twitter' thing?"

It's a good time, then, for Blawg Review to revisit Twitter. This week's Blawg Review #218 host, Adrian Dayton, touches on the topic several times in the course of his virtues-themed post. He focuses in this Blawg Review, as in his forthcoming book, on twelve virtues which "will make our world a better place to live." Considering the prominence of Twitter in this week's edition of the carnival of legal blogging, perhaps "Brevity" is an unofficial thirteenth virtue!

Apart from Twitter-related musings, highlights of this week's issue include wondering whether we need the SCOTUS to tell us that strip-searching a 13-years-old is not OK, noting that offshoring legal work might have reached a tipping point, and finding one's passion in the practice of law or outside it. Cathy Gellis will host next week's Blawg Review #219 at her Statements of Interest blog.