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Legal Blogs as Legal Scholarship?
The Lawyers Weekly December 21st article “Should legal blogs be seen as scholarship?” does just what its title says: It briefly explores the key differences and similarities between legal blogs and journal articles, and whether blogs have the same authority/credibility as journal articles inside or outside a court of law.
While a legal article requires avid research and cross-citation of other views, opinions and like, this is just to add weight, credibility and dimensions to the scope of work which the author contemplates. On the other hand, a blog is not one with more footnotes than the number of paragraphs in the main text. In fact it hardly carries any footnote. Its just a discussion of author’s thoughts on a particular issue or something which is not an issue, on which he carries an opinion and wishes to put this opinion across to solicit views and comments or just for his wish to publicize his ideas.
For more see [http://legalperspectives.blogspot.com/2007/12/legal-blogs-versus-legal-scholarship.html]
A blog, in my view, is essentially a medium for the general public to discuss, comment, share their views or ideas, and perhaps seek a certain response from the masses. The political bodies can certainly use blogs to their advantage (or disadvantage as the case may be) in gauging the pulse of the public by analysing the opinions and views expressed therein. However the judicial bodies must carefully consider the value of blogs as any form of authority in rendering their decisions in a court of law. On the other hand, I am not against the idea of associating more authority to blogs on the same level as legal articles but within strict parameters preserving thus, as Tarun mentions, the credibility and dimension of the legal article. Perhaps such parameters may be in applying the guidlines in writing a legal article mutatis mutandis to blogs.