08 August 2012

Blawgs

'Law Faculty Blogs and Disruptive Innovation: The Data' (U Denver Legal Studies Research Paper No. 12-22) by J. Robert Brown Jr comments that
 Blogging by law faculty has been going on for more than a decade. During that period, law faculty blogs have become widespread. They have also been increasing used as authority in law review articles and court decisions. The ... paper sets out the empirical data that shows who, as of May/June 2012, is actually blogging at various law schools. This is a notoriously difficult data set to create since there is no single list of law faculty blogs. Moreover, some faculty blog at non-faculty blogs. 
The data in this document includes a breakdown of the number of law faculty bloggers by law school. Interestingly, most law faculty bloggers are at law schools outside the top 50 as ranked by US News. In addition, the data includes the number of citations for law blogs in both law reviews and court opinions. One law faculty blog has over 700 citations in law reviews. Another has over 40 citations in cases. 
Finally, the data includes a list of US law faculty in the top 200 of SSRN downloads for May 2012. The list includes any blogging affiliation of these faculty. The data shows that for faculty in the list but outside the top 10 law schools (based upon the ranking created by US News) many of them blog, suggesting that there is a correlation between blogging and SSRN downloads.