« Conference Madness | Main | Run for President Yourself »
The Law Blog Book
Thinking about the law student blogs I read regularly and all the other law blogs out there gives me an idea: The history of blogging does not stretch back too far, and specifically, blogs by law students seem to be a relatively new phenomenon. Wouldn't now be a good time for a book about law school blogs and maybe law blogs more generally? I mean, as a sort of document of their development, a snapshot of this phenomenon before it goes nuclear and everyone has a law blog?
Some content ideas:
History and General Scope: Who was the first law blogger? The first law student blogger? Is there any sort of evolution that can be traced from the first law school blogs to those of today? What are the most popular law school blogs and why? Are there any common denominators among law school bloggers (other than the fact they have blogs)?
Blogs in School: What role do law school blogs play at different schools? This could be a main focus: Some law school bloggers report that their profs read their blogs -- is this a good thing? Does blog content come up in class or office hours? Do any schools take an "official" position on blogging (as in, do they try to control who has blogs and what they say)? There was a mini-brouhaha at Michigan about the "White Lancer" who apparently crossed a line by "bashing" a professor and a fellow student. Are there more examples of this? More important, are there good examples of law student blogs actually having a positive effect on the classroom environment or the quality of legal education in general?
Faculty and Blogs: This may be a subset of the above, or its own "chapter," but there are lots of fascinating law professor blogs. What role are they playing? Do students commonly read their professors' blogs? Are professors finding this channel of communication to be helfpul? (Presumably yes, otherwise they wouldn't blog, but we could try to learn more about this.)
The Future of Blogs in School: Blogs could be a dynamic teaching tool. Are any profs using blogs specifically as requirements for class (i.e., requiring each student to post once or more in a semester)? In what ways could blogs be used to improve the impersonal (and deeply flawed) assembly-line/mass production nature of legal education? In what ways might blogs only make that "teaching" model worse (i.e., will blogs encourage moves toward online education rather than classroom-based education)?
And why stop there? Why not a chapter on Practitioners' Blogs? Judicial blogs? Paralegal blogs? The future and different legal questions raised by blogs in different legal contexts (ethics, conflicts of interest, privacy, etc.) It need never end! The general point would be a populist/academic look at blogging the law. The target audience would include (in something like this order): future and current law students, current law faculty, all legal practitioners, the blogging community in general, anyone else w/an interest in blogging and/or developments in the law.
This could either be a solo project or an edited collection of essays, or it could take some other collaborative form. Could a book like this be written online? On blogs? (I'd say yes.)
So who wants to do what? Come on, you've got nothing better to do this summer, do you?
______
Posted while listening to: The Amendment Song from the album "A Song For All Seasons" by The Viper and His Famous Orchestra
Posted March 12, 2004 06:44 AM | law general law school meta-blogging
Oh sweet ukulele strains in my head...!
I am not a lawyer, but find the book idea interesting. Also find it to be more proof you should have been in writing studies. :)
Posted by: raquel at March 12, 2004 10:14 AM
I would love to work on a project like this. I've been kicking myself for years for not doing a novel about online love affairs, and I like being on the cusp of a trend. :)
Posted by: Beanie at March 12, 2004 10:35 AM
Good idea. Given the hundred of thousands of blogs out there (literally about 1.5 million I think), you'd think there'd be some books about them. But there aren't many. The trend is just starting; we'll know it's picking up when there are some "blogging magazines"--at Barnes & Noble, there are magazines about just about every other computer/Internet niche. I'm now working on an article about "practioner blogs" for a wide circulation bar journal, mostly to inform lawyers about the wealth of information that's out there. But a lot of practioner blogs are a little stuffy, if you ask me; they take themselves too seriously, just as lawyers do. I guess I understand why that is; the blawgs are supposed to be projecting an "image" and are an extension of a law firms. Or something like that.
If you're serious about this idea, you should query Student Lawyer or some other magazine, do a quick article, then spin it off into a book proposal. I'd buy the book. Actually, you might have two or three book ideas at work; there could be a book on "law blogging style" and also "best of the blawgs." You might be right, though, that the tail is wagging the dog--these things might be published as blawgs rather than as books. But someone's always got their hand out looking for money--so maybe not.
Posted by: Evan Schaeffer at March 12, 2004 01:54 PM
Great, so that's three chapters right there:
Raquel: Chapter 11: Why writing studies people should care about law blogs. ;-)
Beanie: Chapter 7: Law blog love affairs. (I hadn't thought of that. Sounds like a great novel, and it would be a great chapter in a non-fiction book about law blogs *if* there's any data available on this. Have there actually been any law blog love affairs?)
Evan: Chapter 2: Practitioner blogs: Of stuffiness and resistance to change.
Seriously, if I end up actually trying to make a book out of any of this, I'll let you know. As a first step, I'll follow up on Evan's suggestion about Student Lawyer, and if anything comes from that, you'll all be the first to know.
Posted by: ambimb at March 13, 2004 10:46 AM
What an interesting idea! I'd buy the book. :)
Posted by: Shelley at March 13, 2004 10:48 AM
Heh. At least some writing studies people seem to care about blogs in general (I remember one former colleague of ours writing about online journals, at least), but it's the niche market that's the key. E and I have been kicking around book ideas lately as well, but there are already a handful of books about road trips in Indiana (it's not as boring as you might believe). :)
I'd buy your book, at any rate.
Posted by: raquel at March 14, 2004 09:43 AM
