Mike Madison on the future of legal scholarship
Posted by Geoffrey Manne on September 8, 2006
It occurs to me that pretty much the only “must-read” posts I find are at Larry’s blog. Sensibly enough, as he is the . . . what do they call it . . . ”blogfather” of this blog.  But once in a while a post shows up elsewhere that cries for (positive) attention. Today that post comes from Madisonian. No, it’s not by our old friend, Frank Pasquale. It’s by Mike Madison, Madisonian’s in-house “blogfather.” It’s called — and I seriously urge you to rush over and read it right now — More on the Future of Legal Scholarship.
It’s about “blogging-as-scholarship,” the Yale Pocket Part, “godless Sodomites,” and much more. And I agree completely: “Is blogging scholarship” is just the wrong question. Who cares? The money quote is this:
But substitute “rigor� for “scholarship� in the “is blogging scholarship?� debate, and eventually reputation takes care of itself.
Exactly right.
I worry because Frank seems to like the post, as well, and I know I disagree with Frank about everything, but maybe we’ve found some common ground here. Read it while it’s hot.
(By the way, because I know some people, sometimes (Joe and Lydia, I’m looking in your direction) have a hard time discerning whether I’m being sarcastic or not, I want to make it clear that I’m not being sarcastic.)
2 Responses to “Mike Madison on the future of legal scholarship”
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The Fire of Genius » Breaking walls, building links said
[...] I agree with Geoff : Mike Madison’s post about technology and legal scholarship, yesterday at Madisonian, is a must-read for lawprofs. It’s concise and provocative (in other words, vintage Madison). [...]
Frank Pasquale said
Yes Geoff, if we agree on anything it must be right!
Really, I do think that Mike’s idea about post-publication peer review in the article he links to there is the sensible future for legal scholarship. It is very Hayekian on some level–it recognizes that knowledge about the quality of work is very widely dispersed, and is likely only to be aggregated by forum as open and free-wheeling as the market.