Law X.0: March 5, 2006 - March 11, 2006

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Blogging will Resume Shortly...

I am done with the MPRE (for a time, at least). I am thus a more ethical person. My first priority now is to add all of the many legal blogs that readers have suggested to my list. After that, regular blogging will resume...

March 11, 2006 in Previews | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

More Legal Blogs, and Another Exception

The following legal blogs are additions to my original list. A few have been added already, but most will be inserted over the weekend. Readers may continue suggesting more blogs through comments or email.

A Future Fair for All

Alablawg

Baseball Crank

Blawg Review (new link)

California Personal Injury and Insurance Blog

China Law Blog

Courthouse News

Criminal Defense

Daily Developments in EEO Law

Damnum Absque Injuria

Decision of the Day

Empirical Legal Studies

Follow the Flag

FUMARE

Harmful Error

Hounded, Cowed, & Badgered

Ideas

Institute for Global Security Law & Policy

Kentucky Cases

Kentucky Law

Law, Terrorism & Homeland Security

Legal Research Blog

Patterico’s Pontifications

Personal Injury, Social Security Disability

Privacy and Security Law Blog

Rhode Island Law Blog

Sheridan: Con-Law

Small Business Law Blog

South Carolina Appellate Law Blog

StandDown

Stop the Bleating!

Sui Generis – a New York law blog

The Daily Docket

The Patry Copyright Blog

The Pocket Part

The Practice

Truth on the Market

Voyeuristic self-indulgence

Washington Syndrome

The vast majority of these suggestions came from readers who were referred here by Concurring Opinions, How Appealing, Opinio Juris, TaxProf Blog, and The Volokh Conspiracy. I would like to thank Prof. Solove, Mr. Bashman, Prof. Alford, Prof. Caron, and Prof. Volokh for citing me, which helped build up this list.

I will now add another exception to my omission of law student blogs: I will accept blogs associated with a specific law journal or law review. For this reason I am including The Pocket Part (Yale) in my list. (But is The Pocket Part really a “blog”? We’ll endeavor to figure that out later.)

Three more things:

1. Congratulations to Prof. Doug Berman, whose Sentencing Law and Policy blog was recently cited by the Ohio Supreme Court (see here). If there were a competition among blogs for judicial citations, Prof. Berman’s would win hands down.

2. I would like to thank Evan Schaeffer’s Legal Underground for my favorite write-up so far: Law Student Spots a Pentakaidecablog in the Wild! (But please read my comment.)

3. This is my 100th post.

That’s it for now. No more blogging until the MPRE is over. Wish me luck…

March 9, 2006 in List of Legal Blogs | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack

Thank You to Readers

I would like to thank the many readers who have left comments or sent me emails suggesting blogs to be added to the list. I will verify and add them as soon as I can.

Posting for the next few days will be light to non-existent. I am taking the MPRE on Saturday and need to focus all my attention on that. I will resume posting Saturday night or Sunday. But I will keep track of all the legal blogs that readers suggest, and will add them when time allows. (This “thank you” does not mean that I'm closing off new additions. Please keep them coming.)

Again, thanks to all of those who have contributed to my list of legal blogs. I will update readers concerning my taxonomy as it progresses, often with requests for feedback (the blogger’s equivalent to “peer review”). And I will blog about numerous other matters, so please stay tuned.

March 9, 2006 in Thanks | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Announcement for Columbus Bloggers and Residents

Howard Bashman of How Appealing is coming to Columbus, Ohio. From his site:

Details of my appearance Monday afternoon (March 13th) at the Moritz College of Law of The Ohio State University to speak about appellate litigation and blogging: Available here. And I'm also very much looking forward to appearing with Doug Berman of "Sentencing Law and Policy" at this Federalist Society-sponsored event at noon next Tuesday (March 14th) in Columbus, Ohio.

March 9, 2006 in Announcements | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Taxonomy Questions and Answers

I wanted to highlight a couple of responses I made to comments under this post. The first concerns law student blogs, and the second concerns foreign legal blogs.

What about law student blogs?: “Unfortunately, as I said in my main post, I am not including law student blogs. This is not because I have anything against them (I'm a law student blogger myself, obviously). It's simply a matter of practicality. Limiting my list to legal blogs by attorneys and law professors still leaves me with a tremendous amount of work to do. If I include law student blogs, it makes the project much more overwhelming. Law student blogs are simply harder to locate, and more difficult to classify.”

Exception: I will accept group blogs done by law students for a class (such as ip + internet).

What about non-U.S. legal blogs?: “I will not be incorporating foreign legal blogs. The reason is the same [as for not including law student blogs]: I have to draw some parameters in order to make this project realistic. If this were my full-time job it might be different, but as an Independent Study project in the midst of other 3L responsibilities, it's just too much for me to handle if I open up my taxonomy to non-US legal blogs. … [O]nce my final semester of law school is over (and the Bar, and my job searching), I plan to revise my list and taxonomy. I will hopefully then be able to include law student blogs and foreign legal blogs. I don't yet know whether this is realistic either, because it depends on what my future holds.”

Exception: I will accept legal blogs from Canada (such as Canadian Immigration Blawg).

Let me now answer two other questions readers have asked.

What about defunct blogs?

I received an excellent comment from fellow OSU-student blogger Ed Olszsewski (under this post). He clicked on a few of the links and noticed that several blogs were dormant. For the time being, I am including defunct (dormant, inactive) legal blogs on my list, even if they have not been updated in several months. I am not seeking them out (unlike active legal blogs), but I will include them in my list as I come across them. Some of them I will eventually exclude from my taxonomy, but others I will keep. At the moment my list is over-inclusive, but I will whittle it down over time. (I will also remove active blogs that aren’t sufficiently “legal.” Instapundit may be an example.)

Ed names the Harriet Miers’s Blog!!! as a defunct blog which might not be useful. But I will keep that one as an example of a “Humor/Parody Blog.”

Why do you use the term “legal blog” instead of “blawg”?

I answered that here. Briefly: 1) “blawg” is a contrived word that is not universally accepted by legal bloggers; and 2) “blawg” is a homonym with “blog,” so the words can’t be distinguished in a conversation.

March 9, 2006 in Taxonomy Explanations | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack

List of Legal Blogs: An Introduction

I have now posted my entire list of approximately 500 legal blogs. I divided this list into sections to avoid formatting problems. [Update: The list now numbers 686. See here.]

My purpose for compiling this list is to create a taxonomy of legal blogs.

The complete list can be accessed by scrolling down, or by clicking on the individual links here:

A B C DE FGH IJK L MNO PQR S T UVWYZ

As I indicated here, this is both an incomplete and over-inclusive list. Some of the blogs are inactive (i.e. no recent postings). And some of them are not accurately described as “legal blogs.” On the other hand, I expect that there are many active legal blogs missing from the list, especially state and local blogs that I have not yet come across.

I invite readers to make additions to the list. Please feel free to suggest legal blogs that are missing and should be included. However, please do not submit law student blogs or non-U.S. legal blogs. I explain why briefly here, and in comments to this post. Two exceptions: I will accept group blogs by law students which are for a class. And I will accept legal blogs from Canada.

Update: A list of blogs which were included after the original list was made is here.

March 7, 2006 in List of Legal Blogs | Permalink | Comments (54) | TrackBack

Frontload the Bar Application and MPRE

I’ve dispensed advice to 1L’s previously here (although not my own, but that of three professors). I’d like to offer one more very important piece of advice to 1L’s, 2L’s, and future law students:

Frontload the non-academic responsibilities as much as you can. That is, when you have some obligation coming your way that you can put off until next year, resist the urge to wait and do it as early as possible. Get things out of the way quickly, despite not having the time. I’m talking in particular about applying for the Bar exam, and taking the MPRE. It’s better to get these things out of the way early.

Right now I am studying for the MPRE (which I will take Saturday), and I sincerely regret not taking it last summer or last semester. I also wish that I had begun registering for the Bar last year, because I began this semester completely preoccupied with filling out the initial application, which takes a long time and can be a lot of work (i.e. finding out the addresses of all your previous residences going back many years).

Of course the problem with law school is that you are always overwhelmed and under a lot of pressure, so it seems very reasonable to put things off until you can handle them. But if you expect there to be “more time” next year, it’s probably not going to happen. So grit your teeth and get things out of the way as they come. You’ll be thankful in the long run. Advice from someone who regrets, and who envies the people that planned ahead.

March 7, 2006 in Advice for Law Students | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Taxonomy: Statement of Intentions

I am currently compiling a list of legal blogs for my taxonomy. Soon I will make it available here as a preliminary "pool" for my research. I am going to provide readers the opportunity to name legal blogs that are missing from my list. Although I don't expect to be able to research every single existing legal blog, I at least want to begin with an exhaustive, over-inclusive collection.

I have already collected exactly 475 legal blogs. I will lengthen this list as time allows. My current list includes blogs which are no longer active (i.e. the blogger hasn't posted for several months or more), and also blogs that are not necessarily "legal" (i.e. blogs that are not focused on law, but are written by lawyers). There are many decisions I will be making over the next few weeks about which blogs to include and how best to categorize them. I will be pruning away blogs that are not appropriate for inclusion in a legal blog taxonomy. I will describe my reasons and decisions online, and will invite comments and suggestions from readers.

Here are is a preliminary statement of my intentions for this taxonomy of legal blogs:

1. I will be focusing on blogs by legal practitioners and law professors. I will not be including law student blogs, simply because there are too many and they are much more difficult to locate and categorize.

2. I will be focusing on American legal blogs. It would be too impractical for me to incorporate foreign legal blogs.

3. I will include the following categories in my taxonomy. This is not intended to be an exhaustive list, nor will I definitely include each category.

Solo blogs.
Group blogs: small group (2-5 contributors), medium group (6-10), large group (11 and up).
Law firm blogs: size of firm, and number of contributors.
Professor blogs: tenured and untenured.
Defunct blogs: blogs no longer active (but still online).
Jurisdictional scope: federal, circuit, state, city, county.
Legal specialty.
Frequency of posting: light (less than 1 post a week), medium (between 1 post a week, and an average of 1 a day), and heavy (average more than 1 post a day).
Duration of blog: how long online.
Intensity of traffic: light, medium, and heavy (measurement still to be determined).

4. This list above represents initial ideas. I am open to suggestions for new categories, or for ways that the list can be improved. Readers can leave a comment below, or email me here.

March 6, 2006 in A Taxonomy of Legal Blogs | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack

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Taxonomy

Legal Blog Citations

Table of Contents

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Blogging will Resume Shortly...

More Legal Blogs, and Another Exception

Thank You to Readers

Announcement for Columbus Bloggers and Residents

Taxonomy Questions and Answers

List of Legal Blogs: An Introduction

List of Legal Blogs: A

List of Legal Blogs: B

List of Legal Blogs: C

List of Legal Blogs: D - E

List of Legal Blogs: F - H

List of Legal Blogs: I - K

List of Legal Blogs: L

List of Legal Blogs: M - O

List of Legal Blogs: P - R

List of Legal Blogs: S

List of Legal Blogs: T

List of Legal Blogs: U - Z

Frontload the Bar Application and MPRE

Taxonomy: Statement of Intentions

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