blawg -- new to me

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(FACTIVA)
Lawyers who 'blawg'

Jason Krause
1,837 words
1 March 2003
ABA Journal
42
ISSN: 0747-0088
English
Copyright (c) 2003 ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights reserved. Copyright American Bar Association Mar 2003

LEGAL WEB LOGS

Attorneys Are Finding Fans (and Some Fame) Posting Legal Commentary on the Net

I'VE STARTED GETTING FAN MAIL now," says Martin Schwimmer, publisher of the Web log called the Trademark Blog. "It's safe to say that I got virtually no fan letters when I was just a trademark lawyer.

Schwimmer is one of a few savvy legal professioals who have found that by self-publishing logs on the Internet, they can attract a wide audience hungry for information about even some of the more obscure legal topics.

Web logs, or blogs for short. are simple Web pages where anyone can collect links to interesting articles and publish personal comentary. Blogs, sometimes spelled "blawgs" in a legal context, have become a popular way for lawyers to keep up with legal news and trends. Think of bloggers as people who surf the Web so you don't have to, collecting the most interesting and newsworthy information in one place, complete with explanatory text.

Web logs like Schwimmer's site or Howard Bashman's How Appealing are proving that even arcane areas of the law are endlessly fertile ground for commentary and can have a broad appeal. After journalists, in fact, lawyers and law professors publish some of the best-- known Web logs. Instapundit by Glenn Reynolds, a University of Tennessee law professor, is one of the most popular blogs on the planet. However, his is more of a general interest publication, and this article profiles only practicing lawyers and law professionals who blog about legal issues (yes, "blog" has already entered the vernacular as a verb).

Why have lawyers taken to blogging? "To me it may not be entirely practical, but lawyers are a gregarious people," says Eugene Volokh, a UCLA law professor who writes the Volokh Conspiracy. "A lot of them don't have an outlet for their interests. Blawgs give them that."

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