Adjunct Law Prof Blog

Blog Citations

The Race to the Bottom has an interesting  June 29, 2008 posting comparing the number of blogs cited in court opinions to the number of time rockers have been cited in court decisions. The numbers are as follows:

Rockers                                                         Law Blog

1. Bob Dylan (26)                                  Sentencing Law and Policy -- 28
2. Paul Simon/Simon & Garfunkel (12)    Volokh Conspiracy -------------- 3
3. Bruce Springsteen (5)                        ProfessorBainbridge ------------ 3
4. The Rolling Stones (4)                        Ideoblog ----------------------------- 2
5. The Beatles (3)                                  Prawfs Blawg --------------------- 1
6. The Grateful Dead (2)                         Legal Theory Blog --------------- 1
7. Joni Mitchell (1)                                 LessigBlog ------------------------- 1
                                                            Instapundit ------------------------- 1
                                                            Immigration Law Prof Blog --- 1
                                                            Patently O ------------------------- 1
                                                            The Race to the Bottom ------ 1

Maybe one of these days, Adjunct Blog Prof will be cited by a court! We recently were cited in a law review article. See, Note, RETURN TO SENDER: OFF-CAMPUS STUDENT SPEECH BROUGHT ON-CAMPUS BY ANOTHER STUDENT, 82 St. John's Law Rev. 1087, n. 43, n. 57 (Summer 2008).

Mitchell H. Rubinstein

Are Blogs Legal Scholarship??

I just came across Brian Leiter, Why Are Blogs Bad For Legal Scholarship, 116 Yale L. J. Pocket Part 53 (2006), which I read with great interest. Professor Leiter, who runs several well know blogs himself,( here ) main point appears to be that professor blogs are bad for legal scholarship because they are not vetted. As he explains, blogs eliminate "mediating boundaries: of distance, experience, education, and intelligence." He also maintains that because of the  instant reach of blogs, an article may receive "blogospheric buzz" even though that article does not deserve it. 

Though by blogging standards, this article is a bit dated (it's almost two years old), Professor Leiter's observations are still correct. I would, however, characterize the issue differently than Professor Leiter. It's not that blogs are bad for scholarship. Rather, it's that most blogs are NOT legal scholarship. In fact, they are not intended to be scholarship. They are intended to alert the reader of a recent case or of new developments in a field of law. They are not intended to provide an overall review of the law in a particular area as traditional law reviews are. In my view, they should be used by scholars as a place to find ideas about larger articles and by attorneys as a way to keep up with recent development in their field of law. They can also be used by students to learn about the law and to help them choose a field of law to specialize in. 

Most importantly, blogs quickly spread knowledge of legal issues and give readers the opportunity to comment. Law reviews are becoming less important today. Just look at how many courts are citing to them. Why? I submit there are two major reasons; articles are too long and take too long to get  published.

So what's the solution to legal scholarship? Actually, I think it was right on Professor Leiter's desk. It's online journals such as Yale Law Journal's Pocket Part which publish shorter articles much quicker than traditional law reviews-sometimes much quicker.

I was able to publish this article in Northwestern Law Review Colloquy about 6 weeks after the Supreme Court decision it discusses. Unlike Yale Law Journal's Pocket Part, Northwestern also allows readers to comment and publishes responses to scholarship. In my view, that is where the future of scholarship lies.

I recognize that others have expressed similar views to mine. Therefore, this posting is by no means formal legal scholarship.

Professor Leiter, care to comment??

Mitchell H. Rubinstein      

Adjunct Law Prof Blog Listed As Number 10 In Top 100 Law and Lawyers Blog

Criminal Justice Degree Guide contains a very helpful directory of law and law professor blogs. I am delighted to report that we are listed as number 10.

Mitchell H. Rubinstein

Who Is Responsible For Blogging Comments??

Professors Sunstein and Volokh had an interesting video debate about who owns comments posted on blogs. That is an important issue and is likely to become more important as the use of blogs continues to increase. There debate can be viewed here.

Professor Leiter, who runs multiple blogs and who discussed this on his Law School Report Report Blog,  offers a simple solution to limit liablity. Limit who could post and pick and choose which comments are  actually posted on your blog.(For example, Brian has rejected a number of my comments in the past). That is exactly the problem, however. With respect to Professor Leiter, if a blog editor moderates what could be posted he or she is making a value judgement that later may be challenged.

One thing blog editors could do would be to include a disclaimer on their blog. I have one on mine which readers of this posting are authorized to copy if they would like. I am frankly stunned that most law professors do not include such disclaimers. I would even go a step further and recommend that Network owners include disclaimers. I have mentioned this to several well known professor bloggers, but no one seems to be listening. Perhaps, the Sunstein/Volokh debate may open up some professor's eyes.

In any event, this is also an excellent issue that is ripe for law review commentary.

Mitchell H. Rubinstein

Blogs As A Teaching Tool

I just came across McBlogmick a blog run by Cumberland Law School Professor Marcia McCormick. Professor McCormick is also a Contributing Editor on Workplace Prof Blog. Professor McCormick appears to use her blog to post a series of lesson podcasts, make class announcements, administrative announcements such a change in office hours and, most importantly as repository to upload documents. It appears that students can organize this material into their own folders.

Not only is this a wonderful idea for teaching, but it also gives perspective future students an idea about the class and about the professor. I think Professor McCormick just might be on to something here.

Mitchell H. Rubinstein   

Blogs As Law School Pedalogical Teaching Tools

The Chronicle of Higher Education has an interesting April 29, 2008 entitled A Class Blog Studies Fair Use which is about a blog run by Case Western Law School Professor Peter Friedman. The Blog is entitled What is Fair Use and as far as I could tell, students post information in response to topics that may be discussed in class. As the article states:

The blog, created by associate professor Peter B. Friedman, supplements a legal analysis and writing class. Each semester the students are given a legal problem that’s used in their writing assignments. Mr. Friedman said this is the first time he’s used a blog to extend class discussion, and the second time he’s chosen a fair-use issue for the course theme (the previous fair-use problem covered Google’s library digitization project).

“Of all the things I’ve tried, the blog has been the most successful in promoting discussion,” Mr. Friedman told the Chronicle. “It’s certainly especially suited to fair-use discussions, since we can post videos.”

What a wonderful use of technology. The trick is finding a way to incorporate blogs into class.

Mitchell H. Rubinstein

Judge Estlinbaum Joins Adjunct Law Professor Blog As Contributing Editor

I am delighted to announce that Judge Craig Estlinbaum of the 130th Judicial Court of Texas has joined Adjunct Law Prof Blog as a Contributing Editor. Judge Estlinbaum is also an Adjunct Professor of Law at South Texas College of Law where he teaches damages. The Hon. Estlinbaum is a graduate of South Texas College of Law where he also served as Editor-in-Chief of the law review. 

Please join me in welcoming Judge Estlinbaum to the blogosphere.

Mitchell H. Rubinstein

Law Professor Blog Rankings

Blog Czar Dean Paul Caron who is a co-owner of the law professor blog network and editor of the TaxProf Blog posted on April 8, 2008 a listing of the top 35 law professor blogs ranked by traffic, available here. No, Adjunct Law Prof Blog is not on that list-YET. Then again, we have not been in business a year which is one of the criteria. InstaPundit by GLENN REYNOLDS? a law professor at the University of Tennessee takes top honors.   

My question is whether blog traffic is an appropriate measure of blog quality. Might there be some  first rate blogs which do not generate significant traffic because they do not concentrate on fields of law that are in vogue? Does it also matter whether other scholars and lawyers are looking at the blog or whether the blog is largely visited by the general public? What about advertising revenue and the number of times the blog has been cited in courts and/or law reviews?

Perhaps ranking law professor blogs is alittle like U.S. News and World Reports law school rankings. Something to look at, highly over-rated and far from a dispositive indication of actual quality.

Mitchell H. Rubinstein      

More on Martinez: Antislavery Courts

Last week, I commented on Professor Jenny Martinez's current article in the Yale Law Review on antislavery courts.  Yesterday, Professor Martinez added a companion essay, "Antislavery Courts" at Yale Law Journal Pocket Parts, the online companion to the journal.  Her essay includes digital images of some of the original court documents she reviewed in researching and writing the article.

Again, Professor Martinez's work on the Yale Law Journal article and now the companion essay is highly recommended reading for legal history fans.

Craig Estlinbaum

Seeking Caselaw's Biggest Loser

Eric E. Johnson (North Dakota) presents an interesting survey at PrawfsBlawg:  "The Most Screwed Victims in Caselaw History."  Professor Johnson is seeking to identify litigants who through the litigation were "left substantially without the remedy sought in court,"  where the "law was correctly applied, albeit with tragic results."  In the post introducing the survey, Johnson makes his case for E. L. and Annie Motley of Louisville & Nashville Railroad Co. v. Mottley fame.  You can check out Johnson's post for his description of that case (as well as the two citations).  You can also make your own nominations.

After considering the cases covered in my course, I would second the nomination made in comments by Andrew Carlon for the Peevyhouse family in Peevyhouse v. Garland Coal & Mining Co., 382 P.2d 109 (Okl.1962).  The Peevyhouse case is a contract law staple; Judith Maute's 1995 article is widely considered the definitive work on the case.  See Judith L. Maute, Peevyhouse v. Garland Coal & Mining Co. Revisited:  The Ballad of Willie and Lucille, 89 Nw. U. L. Rev. 1341 (1995).  Here is Professor Maute's factual summary:

Willie and Lucille Peevyhouse owned 120 acres of land in Oklahoma where they lived, farmed, and grazed cattle. In 1954 they leased sixty acres to Garland Coal Company ... for stripmining on the condition that Garland do certain remedial work to the affected land. When Garland quit the premises without doing the work, the Peevyhouses sued for $25,000, the estimated cost of performance.   At trial, Garland conceded breach of contract and offered no legal excuse for nonperformance. The sole issue in the case, therefore, concerned damages, with the defense contending plaintiffs' recovery was limited to the diminished value of the land resulting from the breach. After allowing the jury to consider both diminution and cost evidence in determining plaintiffs' recovery, the trial judge entered judgment on the $5000 verdict. Both sides appealed to the Oklahoma Supreme Court which affirmed judgment for plaintiffs, but reduced damages to $300.

The $300 awarded represented the diminution in the property's value; substantially less than the cost Garland would incur performing the contract.  This case has always provided lively discussion on the competing goals at play between competiting contract law remedies.

Craig Estlinbaum

New Poll Regarding Citation of Blog Post in Legal Document or Scholarly Article

The New York Civil Law Blog is running an interesting poll with respect to whether attorneys would cite to a law professor's comments on a blog. The numbers so far are a bit surprising. About 55% have indicated that they would cite a Prof's blog and about 45% have said that they would not. This is surprising because the only responders would be people who read blogs themselves.

I believe that law professor blogs are an opportunity to present fresh new ideas. Attorneys should welcome the opportunity to cite blogs that they may find helpful.

This is an interesting posting to watch.

Mitchell H. Rubinstein   

Elon School of Law Blog

Elon Law School in Greensboro North Carolina recently started a blog called Center for Engaged Learning in Law. The blog has a rather nobel goal:

This blog is intended to contribute to the discourse on teaching and learning in law, from the inspirational to the whimsical, to the mechanical. It includes the varying perspectives of teachers, administrators, learners and practicioners.

The blog includes advice for law school profs and us Adjuncts. It is worth checking out.

Mitchell H. Rubinstein

Hat Tip: TaxProf Blog

The Assimilation of Blogs into the Structure of Legal Literature

Joe Hodnicki over at Law Librarian Blog wrote a wonderful Feb. 5, 2008 posting entitled Some Evidence for the Assimilation of Blogs into the Structure of Legal Literature which documents the increased blog citations in both law reviews and courts. Joe also answers the question why cite to blogs in a side bar which is reproduced below.

Why Cite to Blogs?

There are a number of reasons to cite to blogs. Ones usually identified are factual assertions, crediting/criticizing ideas, and using a blog post as supporting authority but one largely overlooked reason is the role blogs play as informal repositories of downloadable documents.

Joe did an empirical of citations using Lexis/Nexis data base and documented his findings in a blog posting that took up about one page. Before blogs, this type of study would have been the subject of a lengthly law review article that many would not even read. More than anything this fact demonstrates the utility of blogs.

Mitchell H. Rubinstein   

Expansion of Blog Roll Links

I am looking to expand my blog roll links. Please consider adding me to your blog roll and I will do same. Please send me a private email if you decide to place us on your blog roll.

Thank You,

Mitchell H. Rubinstein

ABA Journal Blog Names Legal Profession Blog in Their Top 100

The Legal Profession Blog, which is part of the Law Professor Blog Network, was listed on the ABA Journal's top 100 Blogs article. Congratulations!!

Mitchell H. Rubinstein

Law Professor Blogger Gets A Gig As A New York Times Blogger

Congrats to Prof. Steve Davidoff over at M an A Law Prof Blog (which is part of this Network) who was able to land a gig as the Deal Professor at  New York Times DealBook Prof. Davidoff has been able to amass quit a following. On the Law Professor Blog Network, Prof. Davidoff has had more than 123, 000 visitors since April 2007.

Mitchell H. Rubinstein

Adjunct Law Professor Requires Students To Participate On His Blog

Barry Law School Professor Marc John Randazza states on his class syllabus that is posted on his blog/web page:

Overall Participation will be 10 points (out of 100) for class participation and 10 points for blog participation. Exceptional participation in either department can make up for some a deficiency in the other. So, if you are a “quiet person,” you may want to hit the blog pretty effectively.

This raises some important issues. Is posting on a blog the same as class participation? Will students compete with each other for the most blog postings? Should we encourage this? Is the professor simply trying to increase his traffic? What if students do not have access to the internet?

Any comments or thoughts?

Please post once as typepad holds posts for approval.

Mitchell H. Rubinstein

_________________

UPDATE: Jan. 7, 2008

I neglected to post a link to Professor Randazza's blog so here it is http://randazza.wordpress.com/category/law-practice/

I have not been able to distinguish between the professors in class blog and his own blog, but I do take Professor Randazza at his word that he maintains a separate class blog.

The first commentator read the purpose of my posting totally wrong. I actually commend Prof. Randazza for using his blog for academic purposes. Simply because a Prof. raises a question, does not indicate that they disagree. After all, thats what we Profs do.

Last week, I went to several presentations at the AALS conference on the use of blogs by law professors. The academy is somewhat suspect about their use-I'm not. I just wish I had more time to prepare a blog like this professor does.
Mitch Rubinstein   

Best Practices In Legal Education

Best Practices in Legal Education is a blog run by Albany Law Professor Mary Lynch. Prof Lynch describes her blog as follows:

Welcome to the Best Practices for Legal Education Blog!  This site was created with two goals in mind:  1) to create a useful web-based source of information on  current reforms in legal education arising from the publication of Roy Stuckey’s Best Practices for Legal Education and the Carnegie Foundation’s Educating Lawyers; and 2) to create a place where those interested in the future of legal education can freely exchange ideas, concerns, and opinions.  The blog contributors and editor will attempt to document and record the most recent innovations and academic experiments accompanying the legal education reform movement — and stimulate dialogue between and among all sectors of the legal academy.

Law Professors may find this blog of interest.

Mitchell H. Rubinstein

Blogger Meet-Ups

Paul and I (Prof Bales) will be available at the AALS Open Blogger Meetup Thursday, January 3, 10:00-11:00 (note the time change), at the CALI booth in the Exhibit Hall.  Gene Koo explains this as a "casual meeting space where [bloggers] can meet up with readers to share ideas.  Chairs, sofas, and cool vibe included." Thanks to CALI and the Berkman Center for hosting us, and to Gene for organizing it.  Here's the complete schedule:

Thursday, Jan. 3

• 10am -- Conglomerate (Victor Fleicher and Gordon Smith)
• 11am -- Workplace Prof Blog (Rick Bales and Paul Secunda)
• 12pm -- Blogger Luncheon
• 3pm -- White Collar Crime Prof Blog (Ellen Podgor, Peter Henning)
• ??? -- TaxProf (Paul Caron)
• 9pm -- Blogger Happy Hour at the Sheraton Hotel library bar (not sponsored by us)

Fri, Jan 4

• 9am -- Mitch Rubinstein (Adjunct Prof blog)
• 1pm -- Jim Milles

As you can see, I will be at the CALI/Berkman Booth on Friday between 9 am and 10 am.

Hope to see you there!

Mitchell H. Rubinstein

Copied From Professor Bales Workplace Prof Blog

Information About Law Professor Blog Network Founders

I am a proud member of the Law Professor Blog Network. This Network of 50 law professor blogs was founded by University of Cincinnati Law School Associate Dean Paul Caron and Joseph Hodnicki, Associate Director For Library Operations. You can read more about their interesting backgrounds at LawCrossing. Hodnicki is available at this site http://www.lawcrossing.com/article/index.php?id=3801  and Caron's is available at this site.  http://www.lawcrossing.com/article/index.php?id=3830

Mitchell H. Rubinstein

New Blog on Teaching

Albany is hosting a new blog based on Roy Stuckey's Best Practices in Legal Education  and the Carnegie Foundation's recent report on Legal Education.  The Blog is at http://bestpracticeslegaled.albanylawblogs.org/ .  This looks to be a great forum for those intereste generally in teaching, and particularly for those interested in teaching reform.

EAL

Univ of Wisconsin Law School Recognizes The Importance of Law Faculty Blogs

  In a  Nov. 30, 2007, news release the University of Wisconsin Law School announced that one of its professors, Ann Althouse, was named one of the 100 best web sites by the ABA Journal. Her blog, called Althouse, is available here.

It is nice to see that law schools are beginning to see the importance of law professor blogs.

Mitchell H. Rubinstein

Islamic Law In Our Times Blog

Islamic Law In Our Times is a new blog by Professor Haider Ala Hamoudi
of the University of Pittsburgh School of Law. In his first posting Professor Hamoudi describes the crisis that is going on in Islamic law as follows:

In order to demonstrate the crisis, and it is most definitely a crisis, in the way that Islamic law is approached and understood today, I'd like to draw on two very recent news stories concerning Saudi Arabia and the Sudan, respectively.  In Saudi Arabia, a woman was sentenced to 90 lashes (raised to 200 lashes on appeal) for  "Unlawful Seclusion" with a man not her husband (her ex fiance) prior to being gang raped (along with her ex fiance) by seven individuals. Apparently she was in a car with the ex fiance, though beyond this the circumstances are largely disputed. In the Sudan, a by all accounts well meaning English schoolteacher named a class teddy bear Muhammad at the request of the class (a common name throughout the Muslim world).  She has been convicted of a crime under Article 125 of the Sudanese criminal code and has been sentenced to fifteen days in prison and exile.  The maximum punishment under the act could have been 40 lashes or six months in prison.   Throughout the past few days, I have been asked whether or not all of this nonsense is "Islamic law."  The answer, of course, depends very much on what "Islamic law" is supposed to mean.

This blog certainly is needed for an understanding of Islamic law.

Mitchell H. Rubinstein

Hat Tip: Dorf on Law

The Dark Side of Blogging and Law Professor Writings

Leonard Link run by NY Law School Professor Arthur Leonard has an excellent November 17, 2007 story entitled entitled "Personal Diary: The Pains and Perils of Journalism and the Internet" which is about a painful phone call Professor Leonard received who was a party to a case he wrote about.  Professor Leonard wrote about his case 5 years ago and but for the internet, only lawyers may have discovered it. Now, if you Google this persons name you can find out that he sued his employer for sex discrimination by claiming that he was illegally fired because he was gay. As Professor Leonard explains:

    I just experienced a painful phone call that derives entirely from the recently developed phenomenon of what I call "auto-googling."  Most people with an internet presence will google their own names from time to time, mainly out of curiosity to see where they are being mentioned.  As access to the internet has become more and more widespread, this phenomenon increases... And it has, I suspect, become as much of a pain to others who have practiced journalism on-line as it has become to me.

Before the advent of the internet and blogs much of what we write about would only be accessible by legal researchers and law professors. It is easy to forget that there are real people and real lives behind what we write about. Prudent lawyers should inform their clients that if they go to court, there story is going to be public. In this day and age, that means that there story may get out.

Mitchell H. Rubinstein 

BLOGGERSHIP: HOW BLOGS ARE TRANSFORMING LEGAL SCHOLARSHIP

Washington Law Review just published a symposium about how blogs are transforming legal scholarship. A copy of all of the articles is available in PDF format from the review and is available here. These papers are from a conference that occurred at Harvard Law School some 18 months earlier. That  says it all.

I cannot stop reading these papers. If you have any interest in blogging, you will want to read these papers. Additionally, information and detail is also available at Dean Paul Caron's Tax Prof Blog. 

Mitchell H. Rubinstein 

Hat Tip: Tax Prof Blog

P.S. Don't worry, the papers have nothing to do with tax law!

Interview With Dean Caron On Importance of Law Professor Blogging

Lexblog published an interview with the Editor in Chief of the Law Professor Network, Dean Paul Caron which this blog is proudly a member of.  As you could expect, Paul explains that blogs have changed the face of legal scholarship and will continue to do so. A taste of this interesting interview is as follows:

    Rob La Gatta: Blogs have obviously made communication between lawyers around the country much easier. Do you believe that these new opportunities - which can ultimately result in new forms of collaboration between lawyers - are advancing society's overall knowledge of the law?

Paul Caron: Absolutely. My friend and co-blogger Doug Berman at Ohio State calls this "scholarship in action." Blogs empower law professors to leave the ivory tower and inject their ideas immediately into the legal community, rather than wait years until a law review article is written and published.

Rob La Gatta: Some critics of blogs argue that they are not as effective or legitimate as law review journals because they are not peer reviewed; blog defenders, meanwhile, believe that the peer review is instantaneous - people are reading what you write, and if it isn't accurate, it will be criticized (or at the very least, ignored). What position do you take on this? Do you believe blogs are peer reviewed?

Paul Caron: It is not an either/or proposition. As Larry Solum has pointed out, blogs are merely a mechanism (like law reviews) for distributing scholarly ideas. But blogs permit law professors to have a more immediate impact and in many cases shape the development of the law, which can then be reinforced through the publication of law reviews.

Our conference on the impact of blogs on legal scholarship offers a great example. The event was held in April 2006, and attracted a lot of attention in the blogosphere. Those who could not attend the event at Harvard could watch the webcast and read the commentary of those who live-blogged the conference. And the papers were made available on the Internet. The papers were finally published this month by the Washington University Law Review - over 18 months later!

As you know, most law reviews are student-edited and thus not peer-reviewed. But blog posts are subject to searching, immediate peer-review. If you say something that is not right, there is a phalanx of bloggers ready and willing to tell you.

Mitchell H. Rubinstein

Law Review Table of Contents Project

Professor Daniel Solove over at Concurring Opinions has come up with another wonderful use for his blog.   He calls it the law review table of contents project where he will post the table of contents together with a link to the article from several law reviews. My only criticism is that he is limiting the number of reviews. Why not make it available to all of them. As Professor Solove explains:

Participating law reviews thus far include:
* Boston College
* Chicago
* Columbia
* Cornell
* Duke
* Emory
* Fordham
* Georgetown
* GW
* Harvard
* Indiana
* Michigan
* Minnesota
* NYU
* Northwestern
* Notre Dame
* Southern California
* Stanford
* Texas
* UCLA
* Vanderbilt
* Virginia
* Washington University
* Yale

We still have a bunch of open invitations, so we anticipate that the number of participants will grow. Unfortunately, we cannot include all law reviews, as this will overwhelm the regular content of our blog.

Check it out.

Mitchell H. Rubinstein

Hat Tip: Brian Leiter Law School Reports

Adjunct Prof Blog Passes 25,000 Milestone!!

I am pleased to report that we just past the 25,000 visitor mark!! Adjunct Prof started on May 14, 2007 which is exactly 5 months ago. That means that we average about 166 visitors per day. Thank you for your continued support. Please take this opportunity to pass our URL around to your colleagues, fellow professors and students.

Many of you have made constructive suggestions about this site. Please continue to comment.

Thanks again,

Mitchell H. Rubinstein

Blogging, Scholarship and the Bench and Bar

Professor Eric Goldman over at Goldman's Observations has a very interesting posting about a panel discussion held at Santa Clara Law School about blogging, scholarship and the use of blogs by the bench and bar.  Professor Goldman reproduced his notes about blogging and there is also a link to a video of the discussion. What caught my eye was Professor Goldman's thoughts about how much time should be spent on blogging. Professor Goldman states:

    How much time should a professor spend on blogging? When is it too much?"

• Assuming that a professor chooses to blog…
• Minimum amount of time: enough to ensure that the posts enhance the professor’s reputation.
- This means extra time to clean up first draft writing and, more importantly, doing verification/fact investigation to ensure accuracy
- For example, I don’t blog on a case/statute unless I’ve read the original source material. No way that I would rely on news reports or other bloggers’ characterizations
- Very uncool for bloggers to spread misinformation
- I also do a precedent check to ensure my comments are adding new incremental material rather than rehashing.
- So I rarely post in less than 1 hour; I have spent 10+ hours on some posts
• Maximum amount of time: such that blogging doesn’t interfere with professor’s other duties
- From my perspective, blogging doesn’t displace obligation to produce legal scholarship
- So if blogging is preventing me from contributing to scholarly discourse through more traditional format, then I’m spending too much time on it.

Mitchell H. Rubinstein

Will The Next Horizon In Legal Scholarship Be a Wiki?

The massive change in legal scholarship as a result of law professor blogging is well known and recently discussed by Adjunct Law Prof Blog here. Query whether the next horizon in legal scholarship will be the Law Professor Wiki? Google is reportedly about to announce the release of a Wiki where multiple indivduals can contribute to a single site.

A law professor wiki would not not be as a dramatic change to legal scholarship as the law professor blog has been. This is because many law professor blogs are already the product of a collective group of professors. What will change with a wiki is that several different commentors can post (dare I say a none law professor) and contribute. My sense is that a blog permits more control over content than a wiki would.

While I do not believe that law professor wiki's will replace law professor blogs, one day they may occupy a small spot in legal scholarship.       

Mitchell H. Rubinstein

Legal Scholarship in the Blogosphere

The August 31, 2007 Legal Times ran a story entitled "Is the Future of Legal Scholarship in the Blogosphere?" by Margaret Schilt,  faculty services librarian at the D'Angelo Law Library for the University of Chicago Law School. The article is a nice summary of the debate that is going in in the legal academy about the value of blogging and the problem with traditional law review scholarship taking so much time to get published.

As the article states:

If you are looking for the future of legal scholarship, chances are that you may find it not in a treatise or the traditional law review but in a different form, profoundly influenced by the blogosphere.

Law-related blogs are proliferating on the Internet -- more than 80 are listed on the blogroll of one popular law-related blog, Concurring Opinions. A significant number of the blogs -- sometimes called "blawgs" -- are hosted by law professors. . . .

Who are the bloggers? The uninitiated might think they would be young professors, those who have grown up with the Internet and are comfortable with self-publication in that format. While there are some of those, the legal blogosphere tends to be populated by midcareer professors who have tenure, are intimately familiar with traditional legal scholarship and see the Internet as a way to reach more readers in a less ritualized format.

Younger scholars, in contrast, debate whether blogging is worth the time taken away from traditional legal scholarship, still necessary for achieving tenure.

Professor Bainridge in his blog agrees with much of this article and notes that courts are increasingly citing to blogs.

While I obviously strongly believe in the law professor blogging, in my view blogging does not, and cannot replace the comprehensive coverage of law review articles. I believe both have their place in legal scholarship.

Blogs are best to rely on as authority with respect to a recent case. However, they do not provide the comprehensive coverage necessary to examine full legal issues and doctrines. Professors also spend  months researching and thinking about articles. That cannot be done with blogs which discuss cases that are only a few hours old.

In terms of their value, I would hope that faculty appointment and tenure committees look favorably on both of them. Blogging takes time away from law review writings and I hope that the legal academy will realize this.

I expect that one day Lexis and Westlaw will publish selected blogs so that researchers will be able to cite them more easily.

Mitchell H. Rubinstein       

Which Blogs Do Faculty Read The Most?

The Race To The Bottom, a blog run by Professor Robert Brown over at the University of Denver Law School has an interesting posting about which blogs faculty read the most. His study, which he admits is imperfect,(available here), utilizes statistics from Justia.com. 

He concludes that the top academic blog is TaxProf Blog,  but Workplace Prof Blog is the most blog popular among academics ranked by visits from web sites ending in edu. 

However, not to put a damper on this, but I must question these stats. The listing of the top 200 legal blogs of all time puts TaxProf Blog at number 4 and Workplace Prof Blog at number 2. TaxProf Blog has substanially more visitors than Workplace Prof Blog.

Both Workplace Law Blog and TaxProf Blog have postings about this study.

In any event, congrats to Dean Caron (TaxProf Blog) and to Professors Bales and Secunda (Workplace Prof Blog). I hope that Adjunct Prof Blog makes this ranking one day.

Mitchell H. Rubinstein

Top 10 Law Professor Blogs Ranked This Month By Justia

Religion Clause [feed]

By University of Toledo College of Law Professor Howard M. Friedman.

Last Updated: August 11, 2007 - Rank This Month: 13

http://religionclause.blogspot.com

Conglomerate [feed]

Covers business, law, economics and society. By Professors Gordon Smith, Christine Hurt, Vic Fleischer, Fred Tung, and Lisa Fairfax.

Last Updated: August 11, 2007 - Rank This Month: 18

http://www.theconglomerate.org/

PrawfsBlawg [feed]

By Professors Dan Markel, Ethan J. Leib, Rob Howse, Paul Horwitz, Rick Garnett, Matt Bodie, Steve Vladeck and Orly Lobel.

Last Updated: August 10, 2007 - Rank This Month: 20

http://prawfsblawg.blogs.com/prawfsblawg/

Technology & Marketing Law Blog [feed]

Covers Internet, technology and online marketing legal issues. Published by Santa Clara University School of Law Professor Eric Goldman.

Last Updated: August 9, 2007 - Rank This Month: 33

http://blog.ericgoldman.org/

Feminist Law Professors [feed]

Covers feminism, sexism, reproductive rights and women's health. By University of South Carolina School of Law Professor Ann Bartow.

Last Updated: August 11, 2007 - Rank This Month: 37

http://feministlawprofs.law.sc.edu

White Collar Crime Prof Blog [feed]

By Wayne State University Law Professor Peter J. Henning and Stetson University Law Professor Ellen S. Podgor.

Last Updated: August 11, 2007 - Rank This Month: 41

http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/whitecollarcrime_blog/

Workplace Prof Blog [feed]

By Northern Kentucky University Law Professor Richard Bales and University of Mississippi Law Professor Paul M. Secunda.

Last Updated: August 11, 2007 - Rank This Month: 47

http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/laborprof_blog/

Legal Theory Blog [feed]

Covers constitutional theory, feminist legal theory, law and economics, normative legal theory and more. By University of Illinois Professor Lawrence B. Solum.

Last Updated: August 11, 2007 - Rank This Month: 49

http://lsolum.typepad.com/legaltheory/

Federal Civil Practice Bulletin [feed]

Covers federal civil practice and procedure. By University of Richmond Professor A. Benjamin Spencer.

Last Updated: August 9, 2007 - Rank This Month: 53

http://federalcivilpracticebulletin.blogspot.com

Sentencing Law and Policy [feed]

By Moritz College of Law Professor Douglas A. Berman.

Last Updated: August 11, 2007 - Rank This Month: 56

http://sentencing.typepad.com/sentencing_law_and_policy/

Adjunct Law Professor Blog Passes 10,000 Visitor Milestone!

Adjunct Law Prof Blog

Concurring Opinions Law Professor Blogger Census Leaves Us (Me) Out!

Concurring Opinions just posted an excellent survey of law professor blogging which is worth a look.

Unfortunately, however, they left me, the Editor of this blog, out. They included one of our associate editors, Eric A. Lustig, but did not the other, Associate Dean Gail Levin Richmond. Therefore, I do not know how accurate their data is.

Update: Concurring Opinions has sent me an email to state that their survey only included FT profs. It seems to me that by excluding adjuncts, (to my knowledge I am the only adjunct in the country that runs a blog designed mainly for law professors), the data is incomplete. In any event, at least Concurring Opinions timely responded.

MItchell H. Rubinstein 

Top 10 Law Professor Blogs Ranked This Month By Justia

1. Religion Clause [feed]

By University of Toledo College of Law Professor Howard M. Friedman.

Last Updated: July 30, 2007 - Rank This Week: 15

http://religionclause.blogspot.com

2. Conglomerate [feed]

Covers business, law, economics and society. By Professors Gordon Smith, Christine Hurt, Vic Fleischer, Fred Tung, and Lisa Fairfax.

Last Updated: July 30, 2007 - Rank This Week: 18

http://www.theconglomerate.org/

3. PrawfsBlawg [feed]

By Professors Dan Markel, Ethan J. Leib, Rob Howse, Paul Horwitz, Rick Garnett, Matt Bodie, Steve Vladeck and Orly Lobel.

Last Updated: July 30, 2007 - Rank This Week: 22

http://prawfsblawg.blogs.com/prawfsblawg/

4. Technology & Marketing Law Blog [feed]

Covers Internet, technology and online marketing legal issues. Published by Santa Clara University School of Law Professor Eric Goldman.

Last Updated: July 30, 2007 - Rank This Week: 25

5. http://blog.ericgoldman.org/

6. The Volokh Conspiracy [feed]

By Eugene Volokh, Dale Carpenter, David Kopel, David Bernstein, David Post, Erik Jaffe, Ilya Somin, Jim Lindgren, Jonathan Adler, Kevan Choset, Orin Kerr, Randy Barnett, Russell Korobkin, Sasha Volokh, Stuart Benjamin, Todd Zywicki & Tyler Cowen.

Last Updated: July 30, 2007 - Rank This Week: 28

http://volokh.com/

7. White Collar Crime Prof Blog [feed]

By Wayne State University Law Professor Peter J. Henning and Stetson University Law Professor Ellen S. Podgor.

Last Updated: July 30, 2007 - Rank This Week: 29

http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/whitecollarcrime_blog/

8. ImmigrationProf Blog [feed]

By UC Davis School of Law Professor Kevin R. Johnson, Professor Bill O. Hing and Professor Jennifer Chacón.

Last Updated: July 30, 2007 - Rank This Week: 35

http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/immigration/

9. Federal Civil Practice Bulletin [feed]

Covers federal civil practice and procedure. By University of Richmond Professor A. Benjamin Spencer.

Last Updated: July 30, 2007 - Rank This Week: 37

http://federalcivilpracticebulletin.blogspot.com

10. Workplace Prof Blog [feed]

By Northern Kentucky University Law Professor Richard Bales and University of Mississippi Law Professor Paul M. Secunda.

Last Updated: July 30, 2007 - Rank This Week: 53

http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/laborprof_blog/

Mitchell H. Rubinstein 

Ex-mayor hires appeals attorney from law blog

The Daily Report, a Law.com publication is reporting in a June 7, 2007 article entitled 'Ex-mayor hires appeals attorney from law blog" that after former Atlanta Ga Mayor William Campbell read a critique of his 30-month sentence for tax evasion on an Ohio law professor’s web log, Campbell called the blogging academic and asked him to argue his appeal.

The attorney is Douglas A. Berman, a law professor at Ohio State University’s Moritz College of Law and author of the blog, Sentencing Law and Policy Blog which is part of the same network that this blog is on. http://sentencing.typepad.com

It seems like blogging is certainly good for attracting legal business.

Mitchell H. Rubinstein