Academic blogs offer political insight

Eugene Volokh has something of an alter ego.

When he’s not discussing the intricacies of legal issues
in the classroom, the UCLA law professor turns to the Internet,
where his audience is far greater.

His outlet is The Volokh Conspiracy weblog, which he began as a
place to post about current events, legal cases, or just share a
joke, and has since ballooned in popularity in its three years of
existence.

Now, with 13 other posters, all legal experts, and an audience
of more than 10,000 readers daily, its mission is relatively
unchanged, but has grown into an online publication that posters
and readers alike say often offers a far better look at legal
issues ““ such as the recent battle over the U.S. Supreme
Court vacancies ““ than any newspaper can provide.

Volokh speaks with an excited energy in his voice and
deliberateness in his word choice, but a stated modesty about the
success of his blog ““ by some accounts, the second most
popular academic blog on the Internet.

He sees it as an extension of his role as an academic to develop
insights about the law and share those with the masses.

“There is room out there for people who have scholarly
knowledge and use that to convey their views to the public,”
he said. “We knew there was room out there, we just
didn’t know how much.”

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The Volokh Conspiracy is many things to many people.

For David Hardy, a lawyer based in Arizona who reads the blog
several times daily, it’s a way to keep up on legal news in a
forum where the writers “know what they’re talking
about.”

For Hans Bader, who works for a think tank in Washington, D.C.
and was trained as a lawyer, it’s a place for him to discuss
legal ideas and strategies with other lawyers in the comments
section of the blog to use in his own real-world cases.

For Volokh, who has written more than 70 op-eds in various
publications, most of them reaching a much larger audience than his
blog, it’s a different but liberating experience.

“I don’t have to worry about a news hook … I
don’t have to write within this artificial 700-word format
… I can just put out the stuff I want to put out,” he
said.

Born in Ukraine, Volokh graduated from UCLA with an
undergraduate degree in math-compuer science at the age of 15. He
worked as a computer programmer before returning to UCLA to get his
law degree, and began teaching here two years later in 1994.

He started the blog in spring of 2002 with his brother Sasha,
who like Eugene, was a clerk for outgoing Supreme Court Justice
Sandra Day O’Connor.

Volokh describes the political orientation of the blog as
“liberitarian-conservative,” but says its contributors
vary in their political leanings, and attract readers from across
the political spectrum.

Its name originates from its beginnings with the two brothers,
and pokes fun at other political movements, such as the “vast
right-wing conspiracy,” Volokh said.

“What kind of conspiracy is it that lists its members and
masthead and spreads its views to the world?” he asked
jokingly.

The blog’s traffic grew steadily and he eventually
acquired other co-bloggers ““ “co-conspirators,”
as one contributor called them ““ from universities and law
firms across the country.

While the most popular topic for posts recently has been the
confirmation hearings of Supreme Court nominee John Roberts ““
analyzing aspects such as his views on the interstate commerce
clause, the Second Amendment, and public opinion polls on the
nominee ““ the bloggers generally post on a variety of topics,
including discussions of the Pledge of Allegiance, military ships
named after presidents, and the constitutionality of Constitution
Day, first celebrated this year.

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The blog of Glenn Reynolds, a law professor at the University of
Tennessee, had similarly humble beginnings. These days, it gets
80,000 or more visits on a given day, according to the site’s
counter.

“I thought if I got a couple hundred I’d be doing
well, and it just mushroomed,” Reynolds said.

He runs Instapundit.com ““ which the Volokh Conspiracy
commonly links to, and visa versa ““ and says professors who
blog are able to set themselves apart from the other thousands of
similar publications on the Internet.

“Academic bloggers get a little extra credibility because
you’re more of a known quantity. Blogging under your own
name, people figure you’re a little more careful about what
you write, which I think is fair,” he said.

He said producing an online publication has been an education
for him.

“I think the benefit of blogging to an academic is it gets
you out of the ivory tower a little bit and exposes you to other
kinds of people,” Reynolds said.

Reynolds also said “there’s no doubt” people
have been turning to blogs like his and The Volokh Conspiracy for
more in-depth commentary and analysis on high-profile cases or
legal topics.

“Even legal correspondents at (newspapers) tend to give
legal issues a political and result-oriented spin,” he said.
Law professors, in contrast, tend to focus on the “doctrine
and institutional character” of the courts because of their
expertise, he said.

With a number of high-profile legal issues prominent in the
media ““ most notably the Supreme Court openings and more
recently the continued fight over the words “under God”
in the Pledge of Allegiance ““ those who read The Volokh
Conspiracy say it acts as an important resource to dissect the
issues in ways that newspapers or other media fail.

“Newspapers generally give terrible coverage to legal
stuff,” said Hardy, an Arizona lawyer. “You can almost
bank on a newspaper story on a case to be inaccurate in one way or
another.”

Hardy said he has been able to read about and discuss extremely
specific issues dealing with current events ““ such as court
nominee John Roberts’ views on the interstate commerce clause
of the constitution ““ via online blogs. You won’t find
that in a newspaper, he said.

“A lot of these reporters don’t have that much
knowledge of the law. … They don’t understand the basic way
many of the courts function,” said Bader, also a lawyer.
“It’s helpful to have both the practitioner’s
perspective and the law professor’s perspective” in The
Volokh Conspiracy, he added.

Contributors, too, say the legal experts offer a more nuanced
and specific look at prominent issues.

“It’s vastly more sophisticated analysis … than
you could possibly get in any daily newspaper,” said David
Kopel, a contributor to the blog. “If you’re writing
for a general circulation daily newspaper you have to write for
about an 11th grade level ““ it’s a mass medium. This is
a place where if you’ve got some clue about the law even
without being a lawyer you can go to something that starts you
right away getting at the heart of the issue … That’s the
beauty of the Internet is you can create these more specialized
publications.”

With a second presidential appointment to the Supreme Court
looming, and the ongoing confirmation hearings for Roberts, will
people continue to turn to Volokh’s blog for guidance?

“I would think so, just as people who read the New York
Times are, I take it, influenced by what strike them as persuasive
and well founded arguments,” Volokh said. “I think
it’s that they see us as being knowledgeable, thoughtful and
fair minded, so even if they disagree with us they think these are
perspectives that will be well founded in the facts.”

James Lindgren, a professor of law at Northwestern University
and a frequent contributor to the blog, said that emphasis on the
facts and even-handed analysis is largely responsible for the
blog’s success.

Digging up those insights to share with total strangers is now
routine for Volokh, who still finds time to post several times
daily even while tackling life’s other pressures.

“Somehow I’m managing to do it all. I don’t
know how, seeing as how I have a couple of babies, but somehow I
am. Who knows?”

The Volokh Conspiracy is located at www.volokh.com.