The top moderators above me have all been removed by Reddit with the exception of one that voluntarily stepped down. (This process is a pain in the ass and not something Reddit takes lightly. It was an involved and long process.)

What does that mean? Not a lot. Almost the entirety of the moderator activity over the last 10 years is from myself and the mods below me. And before I talk about the mods that were removed I want to say thanks to he mods that have been here improving /r/law.

I want to give a big shout out to /u/davec79 . He's an attorney that has done an extensive amount of work with homeless veterans and has done a lot over the years to make this place a decent subreddit dedicated to discussion of law. Hats off to Dave because he's amazing and I want to recognize his efforts here in the trenches.

In another sub I moderate we had some issues with users filling in the gaps with conspiracies about what happened to top mods that had to leave. In the interest of transparency here and to head some of that off I want to say something about the departing moderators and why they left.

For most of them: I have no idea where they went and they were never here. I don't know who they were, I don't believe they were attorneys, and in nearly 10 years of moderating here I don't think I've seen them ever participate except maybe once or twice in a decade. 2 of the other mods had life and career changes or changes in interests that were incompatible with moderating this sub. It's not a lot deeper than that. This is not an effort to disparage them. There are many very valid reasons to stop moderating a subreddit. So please don't think ill of them or anything like that.

New projects:

The mods might try new ideas and new features reddit offers. It's a little harder to invest energy into something if you think a top mod can become active and just ax murder all your projects or deface your work. Especially if the mods that could help you are simply gone for weeks they'd never notice in time to help or figure it out. So we will probably do a bit more in the way of trying new things.

Some of these projects and features could be fun and work out. Some of it might suck and you'll hate it and we'll adjust.

I don't want to award flair to attorneys because it's too much work and, to be frank, some attorneys suck and people treat them like wizards. I would be happy to give out awards or something to regulars that I notice participating a lot in fun/constructive ways though.

I also might start using the reddit talk feature in conjunction with a podcast. Not entirely sure about it. Some subs seem to operate that way and love it. Others less so. So it's something to consider.

That's it. Most the users here are wonderful. Thanks for reading, commenting, and contributing.