Having posed some questions about this blog’s future a couple of weeks ago, I am delighted to be able to announce the next stage for Nearly Legal.

First and most importantly, you will notice case notes, news and opinion pieces by other people appearing from here on – although we’ll be starting slowly during the dog days of August.

Nearly Legal has now become a blog with a group of contributors. And I’m proud to say that the standard of contributors is very high, as the group consists of solicitors and barristers practising in housing and landlord/tenant law. I will continue posting and will be taking on the role of editor. Anybody who would be interested in becoming a contributor is welcome to contact ‘the editor’ (oh how I love saying that).

The aim of us all is that Nearly Legal continues in the same spirit and meets or, preferably, betters what some people have kindly but laughably referred to as this blog’s standards. In my newly editorial opinion, the spirit, readability and quality of Nearly Legal is best served by people writing in their own voices and styles, and with their own views. This means that there will be changes away from my monotone. I am confident that these changes will be stimulating and for the better.

One of the changes for the better is that we aim to expand coverage of tribunals to include more ECtHR cases and also relevant Land Tribunal cases. Any news from readers about appeals and interesting first instance decisions is very welcome, as ever.

The About page and Creative Commons licence have been updated to match the new arrangements.

In order to avoid confusion between Nearly Legal the blog and Nearly Legal the poster and editor, I’ll be posting as NL from now on. Although I will still be posting often, the kinds of non-housing law, gossipy, ranting and personal posts that were OK when this was a personal blog won’t appear on Nearly Legal in the future. I’ve got a new blog, Beside the Point, set up to cater for those intermittent needs (but there is nothing on there yet).

The transition from individual to group blog is bound to throw up a few challenges along the way, but I am confident that Nearly Legal will go from strength to strength.

From being rather worried a few weeks ago, I am now immensely excited about the future for this blog. This is not something that I could ever have imagined when Nearly Legal started out, just over two years and 402 posts ago. Obviously, my hugely effusive thanks go to the volunteer contributors. So,now  onwards…