Fault Lines is the Seinfeld of the Criminal Blogosphere

Ken Womble of Fault Lines won the Simple Justice award for blog entry of 2015 and that is fitting. Scott Greenfield has been complaining about the lack of vibrancy in the criminal blogsphere and Womble is a refreshing new voice. Let’s hope he, Andrew Fleishman, and others at Fault Lines can keep it up.

Greenfield is certainly right that the criminal blogosphere isn’t what it used to be. There are a few people still slogging away – most notably Greenfield, Jeff Gamso, and Matt Brown, all of whom also contribute to Fault Lines – but, let’s face it, it is not the same. One of the greatest losses for me was when Paul Kennedy of The Defense Rests announced that he would no longer be blogging. Other people have simply faded away.

The one bright spot in the blogosphere is the emergence of Fault Lines at Mimesis Law. I often say that you can explain everything in life through a Seinfeld episode, and in fact, Fault Lines draws its strength from a talented ensemble cast offering a range of different perspectives. Jerry Seinfeld is the star of the show — in my analogy, Greenfield would play this role — but the show would not have been nearly as good without also including George Costanza, Elaine Benes, and Cosmo Kramer.

Larry David recreated the George Costanza character in Curb Your Enthusiasm, this time playing the character himself, and although I enjoyed the show while it was on the air, his curmudgeonly loser could get a little tiresome. The beauty of Seinfeld – as with Fault Lines – is you get a lot of people in small doses.  You don’t overdo it with any one character or voice.  Of course I am not comparing Ken Womble to George Costanza.  No, I think he is more like Newman.