Miscellaneous

R.I.P. Peter Nordberg, Lawyer, Blogger, Innovator

By Robert Ambrogi

This post comes nine months too late, but it was only via a recent post by Walter Olson that I learned about the untimely death at age 54 of lawyer Peter Nordberg. He died April 17, leaving behind his wife and four children.

In his day job, Peter was a partner with the Philadelphia plaintiffs’ litigation firm Berger & Montague. Among lawyers nationwide, he was widely known as the creator of the website Daubert on the Web and later of the related blog, Blog 702, both devoted to the Supreme Court’s seminal opinion on expert evidence.

Way back in March 2002, when I was editor of The National Law Journal, I cited Daubert on the Web as the NLJ’s pick for “web site of the week.” Later that year, in my column, I praised the site as one of The Year’s Most Laudable Web Site Launches. I noted here when he launched his blog the following year and I read it religiously.

Over time, the frequency of Peter’s blog posts diminished. On New Year’s Day, 2008, he resolved to pick up the pace again, but he posted only a couple times that year and not at all in subsequent years. Every so often, I’d shoot him an e-mail, asking about the blog, and he’d always say that he planned to resume posting at some point.

I never met Peter. We talked on the phone at least once that I recall and e-mailed a few times. But in this world of virtual connections, I counted him among the people that I was glad to have known in some way.

His law firm has a remembrance of him and his wife posted brief notes on both his Daubert website and blog. Both sites remain up and his wife’s note suggests she’d welcome volunteers to help update the main site. As for the blog, she will keep it on the web but will not update it any further.

Full post as published by Lawsites on January 05, 2011 (boomark / email).