Legal Commentary

By Evan Schaeffer

THE DEATH OF LAW-STUDENT WEBLOGS? Orin Kerr poses a question about law-student weblogs at The Volokh Conspiracy. Interesting comments, too.

My impression? This commenter might be on to something--

And this one too--

On the other hand, both comments are overstated. As another commenter points out, sometimes weblogs aren't a liability: "Will Baude was blogging at Crescat even before YLS. He's now clerking for [Chief Justice Roberts]." And though there are plenty of other web-based platforms like Facebook, many law students are still blogging.

Orin Kerr suggests that as compared to 2002-2004, law-student weblogs may no longer be "an important part of the blogosphere." Kerr measures importance, in part, by shared readership and by cross-links between law professors and law students.

Using that standard, I don't recall there ever being a period of great "importance" for law-student weblogs. But something does seem to have changed. In 2002-2004, blogging was still generally undiscovered by the masses. Operating under the radar screen, webloggers of all varieties seemed to have a great deal in common, even law professors and law students. Bloggers were chummier with each other, there was more cross-linking, blogging was less stiff, formal, mature. And it was easier to know about other weblogs--there weren't nearly so many of them.

Even if law-student webloggers haven't changed that much, it's certainly possible that law-professor webloggers are interacting with them differently, chiefly by paying them less attention. This would certainly explain the decline in cross-linking and shared readership that Kerr notes.

It's an interesting debate . . .

Full post as published by Notes from the (Legal) Underground on January 30, 2009 (boomark / email).