Law Blog Credibility

2 items dealing with the impact and credibility of law blogs recently caught my attention:

1) The SCOTUSblog points to an upcoming article in the Chapman Law Journal entitled Legal Blogs: The Search for Legitimacy: "The hallmark of true influence – citation as authoritative in case law or legal briefs – is beginning to develop, but so far can hardly be called frequent, or common. Lawyers though, are increasingly becoming regular readers of blogs, and take full advantage of the 'Comment' sections of legal blogs. Even if they are not yet in the habit of citing to blog posts, attorneys’ views are no doubt being shaped, some of the time, by what they read. And many attorneys get the first word of legal developments from blogs, well in advance of official notification from courts. It is far too soon, however, to draw any meaningful conclusions suggesting that the substance of American law is being altered because of the legal blogosphere’s impact. But legal blogs (...) are expanding rapidly, and blog-surfing is bound to grow as well. The problem for legal blogs, then, may be the difficulty in getting noticed amid all of the blog noise."

2) And Shaun Martin, a University of San Diego law professor, points to a U.S. Court of Appeals Ninth Circuit (California) ruling where a prominent blawger is quoted (the blawg in question is The Volokh Conspiracy)