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LexBlog Q & A: David Lat, Editor-in-Chief of Above The Law

November 19, 2007

Today’s LexBlog Q & A features a celebrity from the legal blogosphere, a man who needs no introduction: David Lat, Editor-in-Chief of the prominent legal tabloid Above The Law. Above The Law offers a constant flow of news and gossip, often presented with a humorous edge, about developments in the legal world.

I spoke with David over the phone last week about his blog’s popularity, the challenges he’s faced getting the site to where it is today and more.

1. Rob La Gatta: What do you think has made Above The Law so popular? Did you believe it would become so big when you launched it?

David Lat: I don’t think I had an idea that it would become quite as popular as it has, although I did think that it was going to attract a significant readership – which is why I had the idea for doing a site of this nature. There were sites that existed at the time for other industries and other professions, and I just thought that lawyers love to gossip, they love to talk about what’s going on in their field, and I thought that there was a place for that.

2. Rob La Gatta: Do you think that Above The Law has had any impact on how lawyers are perceived by the general public?

David Lat: To be honest, I’m not so sure about that, partly because most of our readers are lawyers. Not all of them; we did a reader survey once, and I think maybe we have somewhere between 10 and 20 percent who are not lawyers (although most of those people are married to lawyers or thinking about going to law school or have some connection to the profession). But since most of the readers are [lawyers], it is somewhat of a niche site, and so I’m not quite sure whether it’s had an impact.

But you never can tell. I think that the site does try to bring to light the more fun and quirky aspects of what’s often viewed as a pretty staid and conservative profession. So, it could be a good thing – or not, to the extent that it also exposes lawyers and judges who embarrass themselves. But I’m just here to write…other people can sort things out.

3. Rob La Gatta:

By the way you’re producing this, you’ve pretty much independently created a powerful magazine on the web. Have you faced any big challenges along the way?

David Lat: I think one challenge that I’m constantly dealing with is really an issue of tone. The site is styled as a legal tabloid…it is designed to be irreverent. But on the other hand, lawyers – being lawyers – tend to be more conservative in their sensibilities than a lot of other people. So a lot of times, you’re trying to walk the fine line between provoking the readers but not alienating them.

A second challenge – and it’s really a good challenge to have – is also figuring out how to deal with user generated content in the form of reader comments. We have a very vocal group of commenters, and a lot of them have great things to say that are very insightful or very funny. But sometimes they do cross the line, and so trying to figure out how to harness that energy – without getting burned by some of the less pleasant aspects of commenting – is a challenge for a site like this.

I had no idea that it would reach a point where a single post would get hundreds of comments. But like I said, it’s a good problem to have.

3a. Rob La Gatta: Do you have systems in place that you use to control what’s going on in the comments section?

David Lat: We do have the ability to moderate comments, and we also have the ability to block certain IP addresses from commenting. I tend not to do it very much, because I don’t want to inhibit legitimate comments. But for a while, we tried to have absolutely no moderation, and that just proved untenable.

In the next couple of months, we’re probably going to be doing a redesign of the site. We haven’t figured this out definitively, but we are probably going to change the approach to commenters. We may require people to register before they comment, so that might change things; I think maybe people would feel a greater sense of accountability for their comments. But that is still sort of a work-in-progress.

4. Rob La Gatta: Do you think that if you were practicing law today, you would have a blog?

David Lat: (laughs) Probably not. You know, I can write from the luxury of someone who is no longer practicing. It’s hard, because it is a pretty conservative profession, and people can get very easily bent out of shape. A lot of the lawyers I know, they’re even nervous about having a Facebook page, to say nothing of a blog.

I think that’s why so many leading legal bloggers are academics, especially tenured academics, because they can voice their opinions freely. But people who work for law firms are much less likely to have blogs, just because they’re worried about alienating clients, or running afoul of legal ethics rules. It can be a real minefield.

4a. Rob La Gatta: Do you think those are legitimate concerns to have, or is it just paranoia?

David Lat: I think it’s a little bit of both. I think that there are some people who can get themselves in trouble with blogs, but on the other hand, I think lawyers tend to be very overcautious (especially lawyers who have interest in political or judicial office someday). And so they probably don’t even say as much as they could.

But I can understand why they would want to err on the side of caution. There are stories. You hear about summer associates who get in trouble for having blogs; there was that story about the doctor who was on trial and he was blogging about the case, and then it came to light during the case…so in the legal context, blogs can sometimes get people into some amount of hot water.

5. Rob La Gatta: Where do you see this going? Do you have a goal you’re working towards, or are you just going to keep going and take whatever is thrown at you?

David Lat:

Yeah, pretty much…as you were alluding to earlier, I would like to make it even more like a magazine, in the sense that I would like to bring in some more outside contributors [and] have some sort of regular columns on specific topics (and I’ve been talking to people about that, but it’s hard to get people to focus because everyone is just so busy). But I would like to bring in some different voices, and have an even better mix of content on the site.

I do have some goals for the future, and we’re going to be doing this redesign, so I think there’s even more that we can do. But basically, I’m pretty happy with how things are now, and I’m quite content to keep on going.

That’s it for the LexBlog Q & A feature until after the holiday. Happy Thanksgiving, readers.

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