TOP LAW-RELATED WEBLOGS . . . As discussed in Episode #29 of The Legal Underground Podcast, I'd like to determine the top legal weblogs as measured by links to those weblogs from other sites. I'm going to use the list for a separate blogroll.

The tool that best measures incoming links to weblogs is Technorati. My trouble wasn't measuring the links, but developing my own list of law-related weblogs that might be in the top twenty. Even though I sampled about fifty that I thought would rank high, I'm sure I missed some, being that there is no all-inclusive directory of the hundreds of legal weblogs. (Denise Howell, by the way, wants to develop such a blawg directory using OPML, and she's looking for volunteers who want to help her with the project.) Another wrinkle is that weblogs often have more than one address that will work in technorati.

Anyway, here's the working draft of the list. Note that it's a draft; I'm sure it contains errors. Politics-only weblogs are not included. If I missed any big law-related weblogs that should be on the list, I'd appreciate it if you would leave a comment:

• Volokh Conspiracy 3633
• Lawrence Lessig Blog 2350
• Professor Bainbridge 1088
• Overlawyered 780
• Becker-Posner Weblog 742
• Althouse 727
• Bag and Baggage 694
• How Appealing 652
• Legal Theory Blog 548
• Crescat Sententia 473
• Evan Schaeffer's Legal Underground  388
• Tech Law Advisor 327
• Stay of Execution 319
• The Southern CA Law Blog 306
• Leiter Reports 294
• The Trademark Blog 284
• Jeremy's Weblog 284
• beSpacific 282
• JD2B.com 264
• the [non]billable Hour 256
• Inter Alia 248
• BuffaloWings&Vodka 246
• LexBlog 239
• Sue Sponte 237
• SCOTUSblog 228
• Ernie the Attorney 223
• ambivalent imbroglio 210
• Letters of Marque 204
• My Shingle 168
• Dennis Kennedy Blog 166
• Robert Ambrogi's Lawsites 154
• Three Years of Hell 148
• Point of Law 148
• Underneath Their Robes 145

UPDATE: I fiddled with the results a bit, based on a comment. Now there are 21 34 weblogs listed.

Comments

[Editor 'n' Chef]

228 - SCOTUSblog
133 - Conglomerate
111 - Blawg Review

[Tom Mighell]

Hey Evan -- I don't know if you consider Inter Alia a "big law-related weblog," but with 248 links, it would make #14 on your list:

http://www.technorati.com/search/www.inter-alia.net

[Ted]

Classification question: why are Althouse and Becker-Posner in but Instapundit and Marginal Revolution out?

[Ted]

Also,

• Legal Theory Blog 548 sites.
• Point of Law 148 sites.

Probably some others, but Technorati is fritzing on me.

[Evan]

Ted: You ask, "why are Althouse and Becker-Posner in but Instapundit and Marginal Revolution out?"

A fair question. I mentioned the categorization problem on my podcast. I don't have any great answers.

First of all, the author's profession didn't matter to me; Power Line is written by lawyers, for example, but it's more about politics than law so therefore not a "blawg."

As for Marginal Revolution, I consider it more economics-related than law-related, so it's not on the list. For the same reason, Becker-Posner shouldn't really be on the list. I guess I put Becker- Posner in because I've been critical of it in the past and I didn't want to look like I was playing favorites. But perhaps I'll remove Becker-Posner when I redo the list as a blogroll.

That leaves Instapundit and Althouse. I like both weblogs and even think of Instapundit as a weblogging model, but I don't think Glenn Reynolds embraces his law background in the same way that Ann Althouse does. This is not a criticism of Instapundit; it merely has a different aim.

Here's another way to put it. Instapundit is mostly about politics, so it's not a blawg. So it's easy to exclude. Althouse might also be excluded on the same basis, but I think her weblog isn't as exclusively about politics and is a little more about law (as well as many other subjects). But it's a close call.

As Denise Howell develops her comprehensive directory of blawgs, I wonder how these categorization questions will affect the finished product. They are really more important there, since her work will be used by many; my own small project by comparison--this post--is only going to be used for a blogroll on this weblog.

[Rufus]

That's a pretty impressive list, with a few exceptions, of legal blogs that bore me to tears and thus I never read.

[David Giacalone]

Evan, Now I see why Technorati has been over-extended all day. You've touched off a Technorati-storm among your listee-wannabees.

Since I am still a podcaste pariah, I don't know if you discussed whether you're counting links or link sources.

Is f/k/a a weblaw? It has 213 links from 121 sources.

[Evan]

David: I'm counting link sources.

[David Giacalone]

Thanks, Evan. It's nice to be in the same zip code, if not the same ball park, as a lot of my idols.

[Scheherazade]

I am only rarely law-related these days, so I understand if I didn't make the cut for that reason. But if I did make the cut, I'm curious about whether you searched both of my active urls: the original, civpro.blogs.com/civil_procedure, and the relatively new www.scheherazade.org . I think those who link to me split pretty evenly down the middle, and haven't any idea whether Technorati recognizes the one set of links as equivalent to the other....

(Since I couldn't really figure out how to get Technorati to perform, I couldn't ascertain this myself....)

[Evan]

Scheherazade: You fall into the following category mentioned in the post: "Another wrinkle is that weblogs often have more than one address that will work in technorati."

There are other problems with my list that I have not been able to correct because technorati has been unreliable the last two days. But I'll continue updating this post when it's working again until I'm sure I have a reliable list, then I'll move it to the right side of this weblog--although not necessarily with the full list of 25 weblogs or however many I end up with.

[Mike]

Evan, see what happens when yo make a list - everyone wants to know why they're not included! For that reason, I avoid (or at least try to) all discussions of "top" or "best" or "most popular" weblog.

[Matt Homann]

Evan, isn't it great when you make a list and everybody who is left out writes in to complain? Like me. 256, if you are asking. ;-)

[Editor 'n' Chef]

beSpacific 282

[Kevin Heller]

#12 is a nice place between Evan and Scheherazade.