Appellate Advocacy Blog is Here! Will SCOTUSblog be Gone?

While I am very excited about the launch of this blog, I must say I am equally concerned about the future of SCOTUSblog.  It was reported by the AP and USA Today on November 9 and confirmed by the ABA Journal in their November 11 post that attorney and founder Tom Goldstein intends to sell the blog.  With the blog being ranked as the 38th most popular of all time out of 5,521 legal blawgs on the Justia Blawg Directory, some people will be interested in acquiring the site.  However, if the reported $500,000 in annual expenses associated with the blog is accurate, a number of those interested may shy away from such an acquisition.  

Whatever happens to the site, it has been an invaluable resource over the years for not only my practice and subsequent academic career but certainly for countless lawyers, professors, law students and judges as well.  Their coverage of upcoming and even ongoing Supreme Court cases – even listening in on current arguments and sending real-time updates to their 144,933 Twitter followers – is arguable second to none.  

To bolster the value of the site, which currently has an expiring contract with Bloomberg Law, Mr. Goldstein is attempting to get the site press credentials.  This would seem to be a no-brainer given the popularity of the site and its timely reporting of everthing Supreme Court related.  However, the fact that the site is owned and operated by a lawyer who currently practices before the Supreme Court may give the Court reason to pause before formally recognizing the site as a legitimate news source worthy of receiving a press pass.  

This might promote the idea of selling the site to a non-lawyer.  Certainly this is a viable option, but wouldn’t this make the site no different than the countless other entities covering SCOTUS happenings?  As a lawyer-run site, specifically a lawyer that has argued approximately 30 times in front of the Supreme Court over the past fifteen years (about 10% of the cases argued before the Court during that span), its posts are given substantial credibility within the legal community.    

We have a plethora of sites to visit for SCOTUS news, such as the popular How Appealing blog, the other 45 appellate blogs listed on Justia Blawg Directory, and of course this very Appellate Advocacy Blog that intends to cover appellate court cases on the state and federal level.   However, if SCOTUSblog does eventually cease to exist, it will be a huge loss.  Hopefully, that will not happen.