The Indian legal blogging scene has exploded since Legally India held its first blogging competition in 2010. To celebrate and continue encouraging top Indian legal blogging, LI is now hosting the second blogging competition for readers’ and Indian legal bloggers’ enrichment. The rules are simple: every month, if all goes well, the best blogger will win Rs 3,500.

At the end of every month (18 December being the next date), Legally India’s editorial staff will pick the best blog post and republish the winner and runners-up in Legally India’s main articles section. If all goes as planned, the competition will be repeated every month.

Judging criteria are similar to last year’s wildly successful blogging competition and will include originality of content, quality of writing and popularity. The overriding spirit is whether your post is something that we could see ourselves independently choosing to publish on Legally India.

There will be some subjectivity but we will provide reasons for our decisions.

Moderation & rules

In an effort to increase the quality of blogs, all posts will now be moderated so only those meeting a minimum quality standard will go live in Legally India’s blogging section. Our blogging software has also had another upgrade and is even easier to use and more powerful than ever.

More than ever, therefore, please publish only original content that is well-written, relevant and useful to readers. All content must be related to India and law. Posts that do not meet the criteria will not go live.

1. All posts must be original and must not have been published elsewhere before.
2. All eligible posts must relate to India and law in some way but anyone can blog, including qualified lawyers, students, ex-lawyers, LPO-ers, journalists, citizens and so on…
3. You can blog under your real name or anonymously.
4. All posts must adhere to our full Terms & Conditions, such as a strict policy against plagiarism and copyright infringement.

As always in our blogging section, the copyright remains entirely yours subject to giving us a license to republish and edit if we wish, as set out in more detail in our T&Cs. You can also republish your posts on your own blog, provided that you link back and credit Legally India as the place of first publication.

For those writing anonymously, we can send the prize confidentially via named or bearer self-cheques to whatever address you specify or make bank transfers (as was done successfully last time – anyone ever found out who nandiireywal was? No, didn’t think so).

Any questions, please do ask. Have fun!

Internships

Any bloggers whose posts are tagged with “talented” (without the quote marks) will also continue to be eligible to be considered for internships at Legally India (click here for more information).

Full-time jobs

We are also recruiting for full-time journalists. If you are interested, please contact me over the LI social network when you start blogging and I will keep a special eye on your posts.

Freelance court correspondents

We are also still looking for part-time correspondents in the Delhi and Bombay High Courts - take inspiration from the infamous Court Witness, whose Supreme Court Postcards have been making major waves.

Learn from the winners and runner-ups in 2010’s blogging competition

• Laugh, learn, read: The funniest, most useful and best writing in legal blogs, revealed
• Revealed: The best student and qualified lawyer blogs as voted for by you and independent judges

Photo by mpclemens