Blogs can be a great way of tapping into the expertise of others. If you read a blog that offers expert commentary in your field, this will save you the trouble of trawling the big legal databases for updates to the law; with any luck your favourite blog will pick up changes to the law for you. You don't have to regularly check a blog to find out if any new posts have been created; most blogs allow you to subscribe by email alert or RSS alert.
This part of the guide introduces you to a number of tools that can be used to identify law blogs in your research area.
Eagle-i is a database of good quality law websites from around the world. It is maintained and updated by the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies. To search Eagle-i, add your keywords and select "Blogs" from the Resource Type drop-down list:
Blawg is an American term for law blog. Justia's Blawgsearch indexes law blogs and lists the most popular. You can search for law blogs that mention your keywords:
You can also browse the most popular blogs of the day, week, month or all time!
Once you have found a blawg that you want to follow, click on the RSS icon underneath that particular blog to subscribe:
A good way of finding relevant blogs is by checking the blogroll of blogs that you rate highly. A blogroll is a list of blogs that the blogger subscribers to him/herself and has chosen to list on his/her blog homepage.
For example, if you think Real Lawyers Have Blogs is a blog worth subscribing to, look at the list of 'more blogs' on the right hand side of the blog homepage. You can click through to view the blogs that are listed, and you might find some more to subscribe to.
The Law Professor Blogs Network provides a portal to 40 blogs for United States law schools. The blogs flag up news and information for law professors, to assist with teaching and research.