Blogs as a Legal Research Source

This is a follow-up to the March 20, 2014 post entitled Twitter as a Legal Research Source that described an advanced legal research and writing class given by Kim Nayyer, a law librarian at the University of Victoria.

On Slaw.ca last week , Nayyer published a second article related to that course, this time about the strategic value of law-related blogs . The article describes search tools that are specific to blog and law-related blog materials.

Nayyer concludes:

"Once again, critical evaluation is fundamental. As with any piece of information, basic research literacy requires us to consider factors like authority, credibility, and perspective of the blog post or similar content. If I’m reading a blog discussion about a recent labour law case, I need to consider whether this blog author’s perspective is influenced by the firm’s regular representation of unions or employers, for instance. Or I need to look at the profile of the person or organization who posted the particular Scribd document I’m reading, for example."