Overlawyered: Chronicling The High Cost Of Our Legal System

15 years ago today

I launched Overlawyered on July 1, 1999. You can read the first half-month’s worth of posts here.

Many other sites on law and public policy had been in operation before July 1999, but depending on how you define “blog,” Overlawyered might have a reasonable claim to being the oldest known law blog.

Filed under:

12 Comments

  • A pioneer. You should decorate the blog with wagon wheels.

    Mazel tov on the anniversary.

    • By Turk

  • Congrats. Like Obama , I am a constitutional lawyer, based on one Con Law course in college. (The James River Bridge Case is my personal fav). Great website with timely updates. Thank you.
    Rick the eye doc.

    • By Rick

  • Congratulations -I look forward to many more years of great posts

  • As Robert Ambrogi reminds us, Greg Siskind, who has been blogging about immigration law since 2007 at least, used scrolling updates with newest on top in May-June 1998 to alert readers to changes in pending H-1B legislation.

    Did that page, with its updates on top, inaugurate legal blogging? I think it’s a matter of definitions. If “scrolling updates with newest on top” = “blogging,” then you could call that legal blogging a year before Overlawyered. If by blog you mean a writing project that’s intended as ongoing and as involving multiple freestanding posts, then no, not exactly.

    Whoever came first, Overlawyered remains the *oldest* legal blog anyone seems to have found.

  • “It was fourty years ago today, Sgt. Pepper taught the Band to play, they’ve been going in-and-out of style, but they’re guaranteed to raise a smile…”

    Okay, so I edited it a bit…

    Just thought I’d have fun with you ,Walter. 20 years as a blog is doing rather well, actually…

    Kudos

    • By Igor

  • I hope I’m reading (and often disagreeing) with your posts in 15 years from now. Congratulations.

  • This is a legal blog? I thought it was a source of straight lines.

    Bob

  • Congratulations and keep up the good work!

  • I only come here to read the entertaining posts of Boblipton…and the veal…

  • As anyone who actually blogs will tell you, it is a lot of work. I would bet that most people don’t realize how much work it is.

    Most people stop blogging after about 6 months. More after a year.

    Fifteen years is an incredible run and you should be applauded not only for your tenacity, but the great service and platform for discussions you provide.

    Congratulations.

  • Congratulations! Generating daily intelligent content reflects great commitment and hard work…. Doing it for 15 years straight is something else. Keep up the great work. Will buy you a celebratory beverage at some point.
    WRT

  • Congratulations on fifteen years!! This was the first site recommended to me (the first after I got online on AOL) by a teammate of mine back when I was playing darts–this was back about 2000 or 2001; it’s my oldest bookmarked site, it’s still one of the places I come on a near-daily basis, and I’m not even in the profession of law! This is always interesting to come to, whether it’s the comments, new stories, or the round-ups. May you have many more years of interesting reading, debates, and success.