Employment Law Blog Maven in 5 Easy Steps

The blogosphere can be pretty intimidating and it's often difficult to know where to start. This entry will provide some guidance to those seeking to get a handle on the employment law niche. The tips go from casting a broad net to identifying individual people. Let's get started!

Go Big

First, let's get a big picture view. The ABA Journal maintains a blawg (that's blog+law=blawg) directory, broken down by various topics, including a labor and employment law blawg directory. I count about 165 on there right now.

Justia likewise offers an employment law blawg directory. I actually prefer theirs because it displays more blogs per page (90 vs. 20) and it shows the titles of the three most recent entries for every blog (that's 270 employment law blog entry titles at once!).

Go Good

OK, the point was to make you feel comfortable in the face of this daunting blogosphere and I go and throw hundreds of employment law blogs at you. Perhaps it's better to narrow things down a little bit. One example: The Delaware Employment Law Blog's Top 100 Employment Law Blogs... Plus 10.

Another good way to find good blogs is to identify an employment law blog you like and then look at its blogroll. A blogroll is just a list of recommendations that bloggers add to their own sites. I have one over there on the right (the "sidebar"), all the way at the bottom. Mine could use a good updating, it's pretty limited at the moment (though great recs!).

Go Great

Why go good when you can go great? Why take the top 100 employment law blogs when you can take the employment law blogs in the top 100 of all law blogs? As luck would have it, I put together a list of Employment Blawgs in the 2009 ABA Blawg 100.

Go Entry-by-Entry

So far I've been focusing on identifying blogs. Is there any way to identify only the good entries? Well, one blogger does this every week. Jon Hyman, author of the Ohio Employer's Law Blog provides a review of the best individual blog entries he comes across every week. It's really kind of amazing. He calls it "WIRTW," which I believe stands for What I'm Reading This Week.

Go Personal

Social Media affords opportunities to connect with people on an individual level. I commented in my Blawg 100 entry linked above that I recognized most of the folks from Twitter. Once you get a few connections you'll start to find the people who pass on the best links and they'll point you in the right direction.

And now that you're mastering the employment law blogosphere, you'll be able to pass the good stuff on to them as well! If you have any recommendations, please feel free to drop a comment.

You can follow me on Twitter @philipmiles. Also, Lawffice Space has its own page on Facebook.