What if we had a law student blogging conference?

I’ve been thinking of a law school blog symposium the last few days.

Perhaps hold it in New York City, the home of more law schools and law students than anywhere else in the country. The New York City Bar Association building on 44th Street would be an excellent location.

A recent post from technologist and veteran blogger, Dave Winer, asking if we could think of blogging as a literary form piqued my interest.

Writers have retreats for people who write plays, for poets and song writers. Why not a blog writer’s retreat, asks Winer.

The number of law students who are blogging pales in comparison to the number of lawyers who are blogging.

At least a couple factors in play there. One, a good number of law blogs are being used to market a law practice – some done well and some done very very poorly. Dollars are a motivation there. Second, law schools, generally, have done a very poor job of introducing their students to blogging.

This doesn’t make blogging any less attractive to law students. Law students looking to learn, to build a network for professional growth and to build a name for themselves would be well served by blogging. Let alone the benefits they’d receive when it comes to getting a job.

In a day with presenters comprised of lawyers, law students, law school professors and administrators and New York leading bloggers and publishers from outside the legal world, we could cover a lot, including some of the items Winer mentions.

• Who are the law students who are blogging? Why are they blogging?
• Advancement of the law through blogging
• Learning through blogging
• Linking as a means of discussion and collaboration
• Building a community through blogging
• The kinds of tools that work best
• Blogging styles
• Developing a blogging voice
• Blogging as a new literary form versus traditional writing

Blogging for law students need not be taught in a class room with detailed structure. Look no further than BloggerCon, user-focused conferences begun in 2003 and 2004 organized by Dave Winer and colleaugues at Harvard Law School’s Berkman Center for the Internet and Society to discuss the advancement of blogging as well as to exchange ideas.

A decade later, but why not a law student Bloggercon? Let’s bring some energy, clarity and life to law student blogging.

Image courtesy of Flickr by Farbs01