A Taxonomy of Legal Blogs
I. General Blogs
Advice for Lawyers and Law Firms
General Blogs – Law and Culture, Economics, Politics, etc.
II. Blogs Categorized by Legal Specialty
III. Blogs Categorized by Law or Legal Event
IV. Blogs Categorized by Jurisdictional Scope
V. Blogs Categorized by Author/Publisher
Law Firm Blogs – Listed by Blog
Law Firm Blogs – Listed by Firm
Law Library and Librarian Blogs
VI. Blogs Categorized by Number of Contributors
VII. Miscellaneous Blogs Categorized by Topic
VIII. Collections of Legal Blogs
Addendum: Spanish translation of the main Taxonomy page.
Note: Readers may leave comments, criticisms and suggestions about this taxonomy at the reader feedback page.
March 28, 2006 in A Taxonomy of Legal Blogs, Taxonomy Main Page | Permalink | TrackBack
Specialty Blogs
Return to the main Taxonomy of Legal Blogs page.
March 27, 2006 in A Taxonomy of Legal Blogs, Taxonomy: Specialty Blogs | Permalink
Group Blogs
- Small Group Blogs (2-4 Contributors)
- Medium Group Blogs (5-9 Contributors)
- Large Group Blogs (10 or More Contributors)
Return to the main Taxonomy of Legal Blogs page.
March 26, 2006 in A Taxonomy of Legal Blogs, Taxonomy: Group Blogs | Permalink
State Blogs
Note: The blogs in this category are focused on the laws of a particular state jurisdiction. This is not a collection of blogs with state names, or blogs which are merely located within the state. These blogs emphasize state law.
- Connecticut
- Idaho
- Iowa
- Montana
- North Carolina
- North Dakota
- South Dakota
- Vermont
- Wyoming
Return to the main Taxonomy of Legal Blogs page.
March 25, 2006 in A Taxonomy of Legal Blogs, Taxonomy: State Blogs | Permalink
Federal Circuit Blogs
- Fifth Circuit [none]
- DC Circuit [none]
- Federal Circuit [none]
Return to the main Taxonomy of Legal Blogs page.
March 25, 2006 in A Taxonomy of Legal Blogs, Taxonomy: Federal Circuit Blogs | Permalink
Now the Creation Begins...
The character of this blog - 3L Epiphany - is about to change. My future posts, for the next few days, will be focused mainly on my taxonomy. ln particular, I will be creating blog posts designed as "holders" for specific categories. Readers who visit consistently will see one post after another, sometimes containing legal blogs, but other times containing no blogs at all (i.e. just a title with no content). This is all for the sake of preparing repositories for the various legal blogs as I fit them into different classifications. These "holder" posts will be intermingled with explanatory posts, requests for reader feedback, and general posts on other topics. It may look somewhat chaotic, but the eventual result will form a structured and cohesive whole.
I expect that some readers might find this process very interesting. I will be creating the taxonomy online so that my methods and decisions are visible publicly, as opposed to working entirely behind the scenes (outside of public view) and displaying only the final product. I will also be asking readers for their opinions on occasion, and comments will always be open. This is one of the great advantages of blogging over traditional legal scholarship. I hope that readers enjoy watching the process of creation unfold, and playing a role in its ultimate consummation.
March 18, 2006 in A Taxonomy of Legal Blogs, Taxonomy Explanations | Permalink | Comments (0) | 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
Taxonomy: Legal Specialties
I have begun collecting blogs according to legal specialty. I list a sampling below of specialties that have at least four blogs. Even within a given specialty, the blogs are remarkably dissimilar. Some are from solo practitioners, while some are from law firms or even national associations. Some give updates on legal news, some give political observations, and others give practical advice. A difficulty in carrying out this project is that each blog usually contains something worth reading. To collect examples takes time, unless one refuses to read all the interesting posts. Furthermore, almost every blog has a "blogroll," listing even more blogs that deserve attention. To keep on top of all this variety is daunting.
Classifying according to legal specialty is an easy and obvious method, but still requires consideration about how to make it most effective. Some categories overlap, and some specialty blogs go beyond their stated reach. The samples below illustrate the diversity existing even within specialty blogs. To compile this list, I used Blawg.org, Blawg Republic, Google, and the blogrolls of visited blogs.
One initial observation: The specialty with the most legal blogs by far is Intellectual Property Law.
Admiralty Law
Admiralty, Boating, and Maritime Law Podcasts
Alternative Dispute Resolution
National Arbitration Forum Blog
Antitrust Law
Bankruptcy Law
The Bankruptcy Litigation Blog
Business/Corporate Law
Corporate Governance Leadership Blog
Construction Law
Construction Owners and Builders Law Blog
Contracts Law
Surfwax: News, Reviews, and Articles on Oral Contract
The Fine Print: Musings of a Contracts Lawyer
Disability Law
Social Security Disability Blog
Education Law
Elder Law
Aging and Law in West Virginia
Texas Elder Law Blawg [defunct]
Election Law
Energy Law
LOCE Wind and Wave Energy Weblog
Environmental Law
Family Law
South Carolina Family Law Blog
Health Law
Immigration Law
Insurance Law
Intellectual Property Law
Anything Under the Sun Made by Man
International Law
International Extradition Blog
Internet Law
Gahtan’s Technology and Internet Law Blog
Labor Law
Legal Ethics
Media Law
Wahab & Medenica LLC Biz-Media-Law Blog
Personal Injury Law
The Illinois Personal Injury Weblog
Traumatic Brain Injury Law Blog
Wisconsin Personal Injury Lawyers Blog
Property/Real Estate Law
Commercial Real Estate Loans and Structured Finance
New Jersey Eminent Domain Law Blog
Seattle Landlord-Tenant Attorney
Wills, Trusts & Estates Prof Blog
Securities Law
Tax Law
March 3, 2006 in A Taxonomy of Legal Blogs | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
My Research Project: A Taxonomy of Legal Blogs
As consistent readers know, I am using 3L Epiphany to conduct an Independent Study project. I am the first law student in the country (of which I am aware) to receive school credit for blogging. Over the past few weeks I have posted a lot of material, but readers might legitimately question whether I have done anything worthy of credit. My first month (February 2006) has been somewhat exploratory, learning how to blog and describing the process. I’ve also suggested ideas, attempted experiments, collected posts from other blogs, reviewed articles about blogging, etc. I expect that in the next two months, as time allows, I will continue to post similar material for my own sake and for the benefit of interested readers.
But what exactly am I getting credit for? What is the key focus of 3L Epiphany, that will allow readers (including law faculty and administration) to consider this a good idea? What is the actual research project that I will use this blog to conduct?
The answer is this: I am going to create a taxonomy of legal blogs.
I will use 3L Epiphany to propose various methods for classifying legal blogs. My goal is to create a comprehensive infrastructure for the legal blogosphere. I will accomplish this by recommending possible categories that can distinguish among legal blogs, and describing examples of how the classification would be applied. I will design my taxonomy to be both useful and user-friendly. My sincere hope is that legal bloggers will embrace this project, and that it will stimulate a long-overdue discussion in this area.
As an example, I previously posted a a suggestion that blogs be categorized according to the number of contributors. One way of naming these categories is to use the Greek and Latin prefixes. A few of these names may be appealing, i.e. “pentablog,” but many are convoluted and perhaps even absurd, i.e. “triskaidecablog.” I will confess that those suggestions were meant slightly tongue-in-cheek. I don’t expect that people will rush to identify Balkinization or Blackprof as a “decablog.” But the exercise of dividing blogs up into categories is very useful, and these categories obviously need names. Scientific-sounding prefixes may not be the best way to do it, but neither is dividing blogs up into “solo” or “group” as if that were the only necessary distinction.
There is an ongoing argument within academia about whether blogging is a form of scholarship. Here is my own opinion, for what it’s worth: The debate is somewhat nonsensical. Blogging is a new medium, a new form of communication. A blog can contain scholarship, or it can contain something else. It is the content of a blog post that should determine its definition.
Here, for example, are just a few possible categories of legal blog posts: 1) case summaries; 2) legislative developments; 3) predictions about where the law is headed; 4) political opinions; 5) journal entries (‘a day in the life’); 6) responses to criticism; 7) legal news reporting; and 8) suggestions for change in the law. This is not even close to an exhaustive list. Yet each one of these categories can be further divided into sub-categories. A case summary can be brief or long, simple or detailed, objective or subjective, exclusive or inclusive (of other cases), etc. Just as there are different categories of articles within a law journal, there are different categories of posts within a blog. But the latter have not yet been named. There has been little discussion about all the different forms that a blog post can take. Even within one blog (such as Volokh) there is tremendous variety of content.
To ask whether blogging is scholarship does not really do justice to the online world. Some blog posts are scholarship, and some posts are not; some blogs are scholarly, and some blogs are not. But this is on a surface level. Such a discussion does not go nearly far enough in exploring the variety and potential within the new medium.
This, then, is the focus of 3L Epiphany: a taxonomy of legal blogs. I will use my own blog to conduct my research, request feedback from readers, display my ideas and conclusions, and post the final product. I won’t publish my taxonomy as a law review article, nor will I turn it in as a seminar paper. I will display my taxonomy of legal blogs right here, on 3L Epiphany, and readers around the world can access it at any time. I will receive 2 credits for my work, posted on this blog and nowhere else. This will hopefully establish a solid precedent for other law students to carry out blog-for-credit projects in the future. I expect that the continuous feedback I receive from interested readers will compensate for any lack of official peer-review. And when the semester is over, I believe that my taxonomy of legal blogs (and the process I used to create it) will be recognized even by skeptics as a legitimate form of scholarship.
March 2, 2006 in A Taxonomy of Legal Blogs, Credit for Blogging? | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack
Numerical Classifications for Legal Blogs
Blogs are typically divided up into only two numerical categories: "solo blog" and "group blog." But there is a tremendous difference between a blog with four contributors and a blog with sixteen. A taxonomy of legal blogs must take into account the number of bloggers who contribute.
Any taxonomy must incorporate acceptable classifications. Legal blogs can be named and categorized with the Greek or Latin prefixes used in scientific descriptions. I am suggesting numerical category names below (with an example of each). As the number of bloggers increases, the classification names become more complicated. Most of these names will never be used colloquially, but they draw attention to the myriad diversity of legal blogs. The simple term "group blog" is inadequate to describe this numerical range.
The first three categories use a Latin prefix: uniblog, duoblog, and trioblog. The subsequent categories use a Greek prefix: quadrablog, pentablog, hexablog, heptablog, etc.
Even though this seems like a simple and straightforward method of classification, there are still complications. For example, I did not use The Volokh Conspiracy as an example although it is the epitome of a group blog. The current list of contributors at Volokh includes guest-blogger Greg Sisk, puzzleblogger Kevin Choset, and “Juan Non-Volokh” who is taking a leave of absence from the blog. Thus the question arises whether non-legal bloggers, guest bloggers, and “on-leave” bloggers should be counted for classification purposes in a taxonomy.
Here are the categories, with the number of bloggers in parentheses:
Uniblog or Solo Blog (1): Alaskablawg
Duoblog (2): Health Law Prof Blog
Trioblog (3): Products Liability Prof Blog
Quadrablog (4): Concurring Opinions
Pentablog (5): Between Lawyers
Hexablog (6): Opinio Juris
Heptablog (7): SCOTUSblog
Octablog (8): PrawfsBlawg
Enneablog (9): [still to find example]
Decablog (10): Balkinization
Hendecablog (11): Crescat Sententia
Dodecablog (12): [still to find example]
Triskaidecablog (13): Sixth Circuit Blog
Tetrakaidecablog (14): [still to find example]
Pentakaidecablog (15): University of Chicago Law Faculty Blog
Hexakaidecablog (16): Crooked Timber
I invite readers to inform me of blogs which fit the categories of enneablog, dodecablog, and tetrakaidecablog. I am also seeking examples of blogs larger than a hexakaidecablog. If you know of one, please leave a comment to this post.
March 1, 2006 in A Taxonomy of Legal Blogs | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack