Friday, July 2, 2010

Blogs for Law Students

Blogs have become a pop culture phenomenon with a bloggers devoted to writing about almost any topic imaginable. The legal world has its fair share of bloggers aimed at both general legal topics as well as specific legal interests. Law students across the country have also developed blogs to comment on everything from the best study aids to humorous anecdotes focusing on how law school is actually a lot like high school. While legal blogs shouldn't be relied on as the authoritative source of information, they can be great sources for keeping current on legal news, exploring specialized areas of law as well as getting hints and tips for researching legal issues.

Blogs aimed at law students can also be helpful for mastering first year and upper level courses and most importantly having a laugh and staying sane during an often stressful law school career. The blogs listed below have been broken up into different areas that might be helpful for law students and include a short description to help students find a blog that fits their needs.

Current Legal News:
The Law Librarian Blog provides a lot of very useful and current information on legal issues ranging from issues of legal research to current case law.

Above the Law.com - While somewhat of a legal tabloid, this blog does provide some current analysis and commentary of legal news.

Class and Research Tips:
I Wish I Would Have Known - This blog brings together a variety of posts from multiple blog sites that pertain to things that would be helpful to know while going through law school. The subjects range from classroom participation and surviving the write on Law Review process to dealing with law school drama.

Academic Support - This blog brings together great resources and advice on academic support and dealing with academic stress while in law school.

Bar Exam:
Bar Exam Brief - This blog created by MicroMash Bar Review provides a daily MBE question and answers with explanations, in case you don't have enough MBE questions to think about while studying for the Bar.

Law Student -This website has a collection of blogs written by law students preparing for various bars throughout the country.

Law School Generally:
Nuts and Boalts- written by a number of students at Boalt, this blog provides, advice from life as a 1L to passing the Bar all while trying to put a smile on your face.

Law Street Journal - this blog provides general thoughts on law school and covers a wide variety of topics, including dressing for success and dealing with annoying classmates.

Just For Fun:
Bitter Lawyer - The Bitter Lawyer Blog's top ten favorite law school blogs, most focusing on the humorous side of law school.

There are many helpful and fun blogs out there that are aimed at law students and the wider legal community. One helpful site to search for blogs is Justia Blawg Search which allows you to enter search terms to find blogs in different areas of law or for particular interests.

Written by Brittany Cronin, Law Librarian Fellow