The Law Prof 100 is ranking the Top 100 most influential law professors. According to the site, "'Influential' is a measure of how large an impact a particular professor has on society." Voters can nominate up to 10 professors.
Since this is a web-based election, blogging professors will surely have an advantage, as their fan-base of current students outside their institution will most likely be larger than a non-blogging prof. Obvious nominees include Professors Lessig and Volokh. Other teachers in the running will include professors who have written a text books and those who are simply "popular with the kids."
One open question: can retired professors be nominated?
Posted by Andrew Zangrilli on April 22, 2004 12:15 PMI went to Cambridge this weekend for BloggerCon2. Some of it was quite interesting. And some of it was. . . well, anyway.
But hey, there will surely be many accounts posted all over the blogosphere, so I won’t bother going into detail, except to note the following ideas and tidbits from the sessions I attended which I found particularly interesting and illuminating for legal bloggers:
1. Corporations – especially those involved with science and technology – should facilitate internal weblogging by researchers and developers so that the IP lawyers in the company can get a heads-up on new developments, thus getting advanced notice to get prepared with patent and trademark applications.
2. (fun with acronyms) BLOGS = Better Listing On Google
3. Prediction: While individual knowledge workers and professionals will adopt blogging rapidly, large organizations will probably not. (or if they will, it will be in watered-down, useless 'marketing speak' aka "faux blogs")
4. Prediction: A few forward thinking corporations, especially in tech sectors, understanding the value of a dialog with their market, will empower teams within the larger organization to blog and interact with the public, and will give these teams unprecedented freedom to do so without interference from higher ups in Marketing or Legal.
5. Prediction: The danger of having something you wrote in your blog come back a few years later to hurt you is decreasing. Why? Because increasing transparency (and, eventually, near-perfect transparency) and scandal-fatigue will eventually create a more forgiving culture, more accepting of individuals' changing positions, admitting mistakes, adjusting opinions, et cetera. [I know, sounds utopian, and needs to be unpacked, but I think this is generally correct]
Naturally, there was also a bit of controversy; specifically, the inevitable attempt to try to create an elite and separate them from everybody else.
For me the whole thing was irrelevant anyway because that night I was hanging out at Bukowski's with Justin Foster(Blogbook co-founder and admin), Rob Sama and Mr. Blogdex himself, Cameron Marlow, discussing new future iterations of the site and changes in functionality; far more interesting and important, methinks, than hanging out with the self-annointed in a cheesy hotel bar.
Posted by david on April 18, 2004 12:27 PMIn what appears to be perfect synchronicity, Paul L. Caron of University of Cincinnati College of Law has launched TaxProf Blog on Tax Day (April 15th). The new blog intends to focus on "Resources, News & Information for Law School Tax Professors."
Though Caron's target audience is highly-specialized, there has to be at least 1,500 tax law profs and thousands of law students laboring thorough Fed. Income, Gift & Estate, and/or Corporate Tax. If I've done my math correctly, TaxProf Blog should have a substantial audience.
Now if I can just get some tax advice on the proper valuation of this post as a "Gift to Charity" itemized deduction . . .
Posted by Andrew Zangrilli on April 15, 2004 03:26 PM