Welcome to a new series here on LexBlog. There are more than 60,000 authors on the network and we’re going to get to know some of them with five simple questions.
It’s pretty simple—we think you’ll get the hang of it pretty quickly.
Our first guest is longtime law blogger Angelo Paparelli, publisher of Nation of Immigrators—a publication that just this past September celebrated its 20th anniversary. Paparelli, Partner at Vialto Law, shared with us why he got started in law and how he keeps going with blogging.
Why did you become a lawyer?
In college I had read a number of biographies and autobiographies of famous people who studied law and used that as a springboard to another fruitful career once they figured out what they wanted to do with their lives. I didn’t know what I wanted to make of myself. I had been peppered with questions from well-meaning family and friends asking what I wanted to be when I grew up. To stave them off and to buy time until I figured that out. I didn’t intend to practice law, but then figured out that I liked it and had a talent for it.
Why did you begin to publish?
The only knock at my office door when I started out in Los Angeles as an émigré from Detroit was the wolf. I had to make the phone ring, and publishing gave me a megaphone that summoned prospective and actual clients. In addition, over several administrations, I witnessed ever more outrageous, laughable or foolish conduct from federal immigration officials, and would pull my hair out in anguish and frustration. Rather than go bald, or pay high-priced therapists, I published www.nationofimmigrators.com, I chose to offer solutions to our nation’s dysfunctional immigration system.
What’s been most rewarding in legal publishing?
Time and again, government officials have said publicly, or told me privately, that one or another of my blog posts sparked an internal dialogue about how to address and solve an issue or problem or solution I posted on my blog.
What’s been the greatest challenge in publishing?
Avoiding the publishing of polemics, and instead writing in creative and thought-provoking ways that caused readers on all sides of an issue to open-mindedly consider my postings.
What would you tell a law student or a lawyer out there on the fence about whether to join you as a publisher?
The internet never forgets. Be brave, be temperate, be prudent, but nevertheless post, post, post.