I've considered anonymity throughout my blogging history, but I've ultimately decided against it because writing in my own name forces me to take due responsibility for my public remarks. Plus, in the unlikely event that I some day produce a truly original thought, credit would be nice. Anonymous or not, it's long been my view that blogging about matters (involving other peope) that are not explicitly public is a very bad idea. I'm always baffled by bloggers who underestimate the potential publicity of their online writing, and end up with some explaining to do to the unwitting subjects of their writing, like friends or coworkers. From Anonymous Lawyer, it looks like this may become an issue for associates and future lawyers who blog non-anonymously:

Uh oh. One of the recruiting coordinators knocked on my door this morning. Apparently she had lunch over the weekend with one of her colleagues, and heard a story about an associate at another firm who had "some sort of online journal -- something apparently called a weblog," and was writing stuff about the firm, and her colleagues, and when they discovered this it became a big deal, because of what was up there, and they ended up reprimanding the associate and having her make the blog vanish immediately. So having heard this story, first thing this morning the recruiter starting googling all of our summer hires to see if anything would turn up. And, sure enough, we've got one with a weblog of his own. It's actually not a bad read at all, and doesn't say anything about us... but recruiting is concerned. I'm certainly in no position to make a big deal about it, since I've got this little side project of my own... but now I feel like since this summer hire is someone I really championed, and now I know about the weblog, if anything bad comes of it, it's on my shoulders. Almost tempted to shoot him an e-mail just to let him know someone's watching. I mean, I have no problem at all with it if it doesn't mention the firm, or say anything damaging about anyone here or anything we do. But I'm not sure everyone else is as "enlightened." Words for all to see make lawyers uneasy. We're used to privileged communications....

(Link from Tech Law Adviser.) In law student and lawyer circles, blogging appears to be relatively common. Unless and until law firms come up with express policies about their employees' blogging, bloggers would be wise to write nothing about their coworkers or their firm's clients without permission. To avoid unpleasant surprises, it might even be wise to make their firms aware that they blog--which I intend to do--just in case.

As to whether law-bloggers should take general legal positions that may be inconsistent with the interests of their employer's clients, I'm not sure what the protocol should be. Any thoughts?