Catching up on things I meant to post a while ago, here’s a story I saw back home earlier this summer.

“Orlando lawyer is Web hero after defending blogger,” by Harry Wessel, Orlando Sentinel, May 12, 2006.

An Orlando lawyer stepped in to defend a Maine blogger sued for criticizing a state subcontractor. The blogger, Lance Dutson of mainewebreport.com, posted a copy of a Maine tourism advertisement; the ad agency sued for defamation and copyright infringement. The lawyer, Greg Herbert of Greenberg Traurig, acted as Dutson’s pro bono counsel after being recommended by a mutual friend; Herbert specializes in First Amendment and intellectual property law.

[Blogger Lance] Dutson received hundreds of supportive e-mails and posts from bloggers, as well as a strong Boston Globe editorial defending his First Amendment rights, after he was sued last month by the Maine Office of Tourism’s contracted ad agency — Warren Kremer Paino Advertising.

Dutson had criticized the New York ad firm as part of a larger campaign against Maine’s tourism office, which he thinks is incompetent and wasting taxpayers’ money.