With the end of 2010 in sight, nominations are now being accepted for the annual Canadian Law Blog Awards. The “CLawBies” recognize the work of Canadian legal professionals who share their insight and expertise with the world through a blog.

Details about the awards and the nomination process and previous winners can be found here. You can view all the nominations by searching #Clawbies2010 on Twitter.

For an authoritative list of Canadian law blogs, visit www.lawblogs.ca, where there’s sure to be something for everybody.

Here are my three nominations for the 2010 Clawbies, in no particular order:

Law of the Lands Blog by John Goudy

I grew up in a farming community and harvested tobacco in the summer to pay my way through college, so I’ve got a soft spot for the plight of farmers and rural landowners and have always wanted to stay more informed. Until recently, however, it was difficult to find a good single source of interesting legal news and commentary on these kinds of issues.

Luckily, this void is very nicely filled by the Law of the Lands Blog, launched this year by John Goudy, a lawyer at Cohen Highley LLP in London, Ontario.  John covers farm, energy and environmental law, primarily as it affects rural folks, but in a way that is still of great interest and practicality to us city lawyers. His posting frequency is outstanding with about 15-32 posts per month.

Canadian lawyers who service rural communities or act for farmers and landowners should definitely be reading this blog, which has few peers, for expert insight, commentary and breaking developments and news from the courts, regulators and industry all across Canada. With all the concern nowadays about rural areas being under-serviced by the legal profession and the fact that the legal publishers basically ignore rural law issues, John’s blog is a gem of a resource.

Toronto Estate Monitor by Megan Connolly

At some point or another, most lawyers find themselves with a case involving one or more elements of estates and trusts law. That, and the fact that we have to plan for our own passing or incapacity, makes it essential to stay current with this area of law.

Megan Connolly’s Toronto Estate Monitor is a great source of timely commentary, case updates and practice tips on a wide variety of estates and trusts issues. While geared towards Ontario lawyers looking for insight on a particular topic (e.g., obtaining court approval of a settlement for an incapable litigant), the entries are clear and simple enough to be of great benefit to most laypeople, whether for their own affairs or to manage those of someone else. Megan launched her blog in summer 2010 and is generating high quality content at the rate of about 10-13 posts per month.

Ontario Legal Blog by Christopher Caruana

Since early 2007, Toronto commercial litigator Christopher Caruana has run a low-profile but noteworthy personal law blog. After leaving the big law firm culture that forbade lawyers to have their own websites or give anything remotely close to a personal comment in public online, Caruana struck out on his own. He blogs from the trenches, sharing his two cents on law practice or what appears in the papers or the propositions gleaned from his cases. Small business people (his clientele) will appreciate the frank and well-considered comments about litigation matters. Fellow commercial litigators will be struck by the enjoyable, easy-going writing style and crisp conclusions, often peppered with humour.

With entries chock-full of his personal observations, Caruana calls things as he sees them.  All his posts leave readers with something to think about and wanting to come back for more.