Authoring some of the most widely read content on LexBlog is no small feat; our network of 23,000 legal bloggers and growing brings in more than 200 blog posts daily, adding up to about 6000 new posts every month.

In an effort to recognize the incredible work of those contributing to the legal blogging community, LexBlog issues monthly Reader’s Choice Awards to those who authored the three most trafficked blog posts on LexBlog during the previous month. Their blog profile page on LexBlog also receives an official emblem that links to the winning post.

Congratulations to July’s winners on their timely and compelling work! Winning posts from previous months can be found here.

DOJ Brings First-Ever Criminal Prosecution of Executives for Failing to Report Dangerous Product Defects By Kristina Burland & Matthew D. Lee of Tax Controversy and Financial Crimes Report

Two of Fox Rothschild‘s criminal defense lawyers report on a precedent-setting prosecution of two California executives. Despite being aware as early as July 2012 that their dehumidifiers were defective and could catch fire, executives Simon Chu and Charley Loh failed to notify the Consumer Products Safety Commission. They continued to sell the defective humidifiers and approximately 2.2 million Chinese dehumidifiers were recalled in Sept. 2013.

Memorable quote: “The indictment signals that the U.S. Department of Justice is now willing to prosecute both corporations and their executives for failing to comply with the reporting requirement set forth in Section 15…As U.S. Attorney Nicola T. Hanna of the Central District of California cautioned, the indictment ‘sends a clear message: If you plan to profit from selling defective products, you should also plan to face justice.'”

The Elusive Value of Law Libraries By David Whelan of Explorations with Information and Technology

There is an innate understanding that law libraries and librarians, through their curation and distribution of legal resources and information, are invaluable to the legal industry. But, especially when funders decide whether to give their dollars to law libraries or other organizations, the importance of ascribing a monetary value to the work and time it takes a library staff to do research becomes more evident. David Whelan asks a thought-provoking question: “How does the library translate that usage into value?”

Memorable quote: “There seems to be an acceptance between funders and law libraries that we can’t actually prove our value. It may be that we all understand that law library value is an intuitive thing. The inability to ascribe a dollar value to law library operations is not always determinative in decisions to keep or close a law library. Unfortunately, without a financial value, law libraries are in more uncertain position.”

NLRB Limits Duty to Bargain Over Disciplinary Actions By of Labor & Employment Law Blog

Unionized employers must bargain with its employees’ union prior to making change in employees’ wages, hours, or other conditions of employment–commonly referred to as mandatory bargaining subjects. But in the case of Oberthur Technologies, a Trump Board held that, despite discharging four employees without notifying the employees’ union, Oberthur Technologies did not make any changes that required bargaining. Two of Sheppard Mullin’s go-to labor lawyers says this case “signals a probable change in the Board’s governing case law on this issue.”

Memorable quote: “Newly organized employers without collective bargaining agreements and unionized employers with expired contracts are likely free to discipline their union workers in accordance with the company’s existing employment policies and practices without first having to notify and bargain with its employee’s union.”