In 1936, Yale law professor Fred Rodell wrote “[t]here are two things wrong with almost all legal writing. One is its style. The other is its content.” Some things never change, but the growth of legal blogging over the past decade would give hope to even Professor Rodell that not all legal writing must suffer from these twin deficiencies. In fact, the good professor might even be persuaded to accept that short form legal writing through blogs serves as a valuable source of legal scholarship. In the context of a for-credit tech law internship overseen by the University of Ottawa law school this fall, I have been investigating the issues surrounding the use and usefulness of short form content in legal and other academic disciplines. I was attracted to the topic because of a project underway at my host, CanLII, to develop a companion research site built on community contributed content. A paper is forthcoming, but as the topic of harnessing value in law blogging was raised in a recent post by uber-blawger Kevin O’Keefe, I thought it would be of interest to blog on the topic as well. Why blogs? Whether one is a lawyer, law student or a client, traditional legal writing usually does not bring to mind many positive associations. Why would it? It’s hermetic, too long, and packed with fancy jargon and dated phrasing. As a means of communication, it is terribly ineffective and unappealing.
Posted on: Mon, 02 Dec 2013 13:30:15 +0000
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