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Legal Bloggers Building On Each Other’s Work

December 20, 2021

In a recent tweet, tech entrepreneur and the inventor of blogging, Dave Winer hits on what I see legal blogging being all about.

Building upon each other’s blogging, as opposed to each blog pretending to be the center of the world.

Meg Bernard, writing in the New York Times Magazine on the life and work of educator and researcher, Pauline Boss, references this same concept of building on another’s work

After the 1999 publication of Boss’s seminal book, “Ambiguous Loss: Learning to Live With Unresolved Grief,” numerous scholars began building on her work. They published papers examining exile, foster care and traumatic brain injury through the lens of her theory.”

Blogging is a conversation. A blogger listens (reads) what other bloggers in the niche are saying (writing) and dovetails off what they heard, citing the other’s work and offers their own insight and commentary.

Knowledge is built, the law is advanced on this conversation.

Blogs acting like the center of the universe on the subject don’t contribute to the growth of knowledge, the law. They are not building on the work of others.

You are also leaving yourself out of the conversation among authorities in your niche area of the law.

You lose getting cited by others – you’ll not get seen when the leading authorities cite each other.

People doing research in the area – the consumers of legal services – won’t find you as they read the discussion/writing of authorities.

You also lose influence, something that Google and the social media networks look for, when surfacing you, your blogging and your work.

Sure, you can sure share legal information, commentary and insight on your blog without building on the work of others.

You’re just not contributing to the law in the most effective way and you’re limiting the size of your audience.