Blogs in the Spotlight

The National Law Journal's supplement, Law Schools--A Special Report, highlights five "pioneers in law blogging," who are some of the best-known bloggers in legal academic--Professors Douglas Berman (Sentencing Law and Policy); Paul Caron (TaxProf Blog); Christine Hurt (The Conglomerate); Brian Leiter (Brian Leiter's Law School Reports); and Eugene Volokh (The Volokh Conspiracy). The brief profiles of the bloggers contain some interesting nuggets about why they started blogging and how they juggle their time commitments. Professor Hurt revealed that it is difficult to start blogging, at least for some people. Academics are accustomed to sharing their work with colleagues and to reworking their ideas many, many times before publication. "The thought of throwing something up on the computer scene [sic] for the whole world to read in five minutes doesn't resonate with a lot of people." Professor Berman began blogging in 2004, and has "learned to rein in his impulse to post fast-and-furious reactions to news and events. ... Over time, [he's] gotten more sensitive to being more mature, to resist the significant urge to go for the quick, sexy, clever comment." All of the professors interviewed say that blogging is a tremendous incentive for keeping up to date in their area of expertise and makes them more effective classroom teachers.