It's no surprise that the legal community often lags behind the real world in terms of technology.  But the good news is, after 16 years of being in existence, blogs have become a staple of the law school and the legal community.

Blogs, short for web logs, started in 1993, as a form of web based commentary.  The early versions of blogs were manually updated components of common websites.  Thank you, Wikipedia.  Once blogs started to pick up popularity, different types of blogs started to emerge.  Some people used blogs as a way to journal their daily lives on the web; many used blogging as an open forum for answering questions, or providing commentary on a specific subject, like politics or travel.  Blogs give writers the chance to share their thoughts and opinions on things, and also provide readers with the opportunity to comment.

Over the last several years, the concept of blogging has taken root in the legal community.  Various legal blogs like Above the Law and Legal Juice have become popular stops on the internet superhighway for those wanting to find out what's happening in the legal world and how people respond to it.  Many law professors and students at GW are involved in blogs in one way or another.  But with so much going on and the mountains of work that all law students and professors have to do, several questions come to mind: What is so great about blogging?  Why do professors blog?  Why do students blog?

Two of possibly GW's most well-known professors, Orin Kerr and Jonathan Turley are active bloggers.  For Professor Kerr, blogging is just a "natural extension of my scholarly writing: It's just writing for a broader audience than would ever pick up a law review."  Kerr also noted that, in addition to extending his scholarly writing, blogging provides a great way to get his ideas out there and influence the debate on issues that he cares about.  Professor Kerr contributes to a group blog, The Volokh Conspiracy (volokh.com).  If anyone is interested in the crazy dreams that he's been having lately, be sure to hit the link.

Anyone who has taken Professor Turley's Torts class knows that jonathanturley.org is the place to be if you are surfing the web in class.  According to Professor Turley, "the site was originally conceived as a handy forum to change (sic) fun cases and stories with my students and colleagues.  It allows the students to see real-life applications of the doctrines and theories that we cover.  It also gives them the newly emerging issues in these areas in a format that is a bit more accessible than a textbook."  Professor Turley's blog is just one of the many legal blogs out there that discusses important issues in the legal community as well some bizarre legal stories.  A quick perusal of the site reveals headlines such as "Any Color So Long As It Is Green: California Moves to Regulate Car Color" and "Blowin' in the Wind: Bob Dylan Faces Nuisance Complaint Over Smelly Toilet in Yard."

Law professors aren't the only ones at GW who have caught the blogging itch.  Students are also active in the blogging scene.  In fact, GW Law has its own blog, Sua Sponte (http://suasponteblog.com/).  Sua Sponte was started by a group of law students who just wanted to share their thoughts, ideas, and opinions on things.  One of Sua Sponte's creators, Navah Spero started blogging because "I've always loved telling other people my opinions and hear other people's opinions and blogs are a great place to do it."  Although written by and for law students, Sua Sponte isn't just limited to the GW legal scene.  According to Hamilton Fish, one of Sua Sponte's contributors, "it wouldn't be out of the ordinary to have a post from one person about course selection followed by a commentary on the November elections. "  Hamilton Fish provided some great insights into the benefits of blogging: "First, blogging is a great way for me to spend some time during the day and not think about cases or the law.  It's a release of sorts.  Second, I have found that over time, my style of writing has improved and I have (hopefully) become a better and more persuasive writer.  Third, blogging makes me think twice about my actions.  I may have what I think is a million dollar thought, and write about it, only to realize later on that my idea was terrible or poorly articulated."

So law professors blog for the legal community and for their students.  Law students blog for themselves and their classmates.  But are the students actually reading blogs?  The answer to this question varied widely.  Some students don't read blogs at all, while others read them on a daily basis.  2L Ashley Inderfurth said she doesn't read news blogs because "I like to form my own opinions as much as possible, and I think that blogs are often really partisan and don't tell the whole story."  Sometimes, blogs and their commentary provide too much of the story; so much so, that it turns potential readers, like 2L Darrell Stark off from reading blogs all together.  A lot of times, "people stay on blogs all day, every day, reading every post, responding to every post and by the time I read it, the post I wanted to respond to has been followed by intervening posts that have already changed the subject so many times and its not worth posting anymore."

On the flip side, 2L evening student, Ben Williams reads over 60 blogs regularly.  With his busy schedule, Williams finds it "useful to take advantage of the fact that other people read the news, find interesting stories, and add their insight."  Blogs, he says, keeps him very up to date because he doesn't have time to manually visit a lot of sites.

So some people do read blogs and find benefits in the comments that others post.  With that, and the growing popularity of blogging, is it all glitz and glam for those starting posts on blogs?  Williams commented, "I have a lot of respect for bloggers, students in particular. Putting your actual name and opinions on the Internet takes a lot of guts, especially with the vitriol that appears regularly in comments."  This statement really hits home for some bloggers, who have had to deal with negative comments from readers.  Sua Sponte blogger, Spero has "personally struggled with some of the comments--those comments that are just written to be mean, whether they are directed at other commenters, other bloggers, or me."  Another Sua Sponte blogger had a similar take on the experience, "Having classmates-people I probably sit next to every day-write horrible, cruel and very personal attacks under such brave monickers as "Anonymous 2L" was really awful."  For Hamilton Fish, "The hardest part of blogging is recognizing that: a) you won't be able to please all readers and b) every post won't be a home run."

But even with this negative side of blogging, the practice of sharing information, exchanging stories and ideas and commenting on them has had a tremendous impact on the legal community, and the law school.  For the most part, the experience has been a positive one, and more people seem to be reading and commenting on blogs.  It may have taken a while, but blogs, law school's not-so-new favorite toy, will likely be around for quite some time.  So check one out.  Today.  Now.