I am no stranger to online dating.   When I say technology confuses me, I don’t mean the actual typing on the keys or google or even developing relationships online.  When I say I’d rather have someone communicate with me directly I don’t mean drive across town and come over for a cup of tea (although that would be nice).  Most of the female friends that I’ve made as an adult come from an online fertility support group when I did a web search for ‘infertility sucks’.  I came upon a site (that I got kicked off of, its a running joke now how I can get kicked out of a support group) where there were women who lived just miles away from me who were going through the same things I was.  I was no longer alone.  These women saved my life.

If you’ve read a few pages back, you get an idea of how my life as a lawyer and as a human has progressed.  Not Guilty went by the wayside for a while because I didn’t think I had much to say.  I don’t talk a whole lot about my kids in real life, so why would I write entire blog posts about them?

My online dating began again after I’d decided that staying at home wasn’t for me.  I jumped back into the fray and started on Solosez, a listserv for solos and small firms.  At one particular lunch, I was passed a business card that said KOEHLER LAW on it in bold letters.  It caught my attention, which is what a business card is supposed to do, right?

A few days later, I got an email from this Koehler fellow, saying he’d read the blog and enjoyed it.  Huh.  That’s odd.  I didn’t think anyone read Not Guilty anymore.  I know I didn’t.

Jamison Koehler saved Not Guilty’s life.

You can thank him.  Or blame him.

Now, when Jamison and I initially talked, I didn’t realize that he was a well-respected blogger even though he was pretty new at the game.  He was on Scott Greenfield’s blogroll and Carolyn Elefant had done a piece about him.  I knew from the few entries I read after his initial email that his father was a poet, that he was married to a pretty spectacular (and gorgeous) lawyer and had just moved here from Philly.  We had a lot in common as far as setting up a new law practice in new towns, practicing criminal defense, and blogging.  It turns out we both like a friendly game of poker as well.

Jamison and I are working a case together right now.  While I am bull in the china shopesque, Jamison is thoughtful and methodical.  He is, in person, exactly as he is on his blog – careful, kind and candid. It should also come as no suprise to his regular readers that Jamison is a writer.  Duh, you say – he writes a blog of course he’s a writer.  No.  I mean like a REAL writer.  He doesn’t just slap some words together and cobble together some drivel for you all to nod your heads to.  He is trained.  He knows where to put his periods.  He knows about pacing and tone, climax and you know, other stuff like that.  The stuff that the rest of us nod our heads to.  His writing is eloquent and deep and show us that he cares about what he is doing, is thinking about why he is doing it, and he allows us to see the process as it occurs.

The blogosphere, my friends, is a tricky place.  There are rules that I don’t know about and its good to have a friend who can help you find your way.  Jamison is exactly that kind of friend.

And his name kicks ass.