by Ryan McKeen
Nothing.
Last night Gideon, Norm Pattis and I batted this question around over a few tweets.
My theory on what something is worth is simple. What would somebody pay for it?
Aside from commercial sites like Above The Law or SCOTUSBLOG that aren’t really blogs in the first place, I think the grand total of the value of all law blogs in the country is somewhere in the ballpark of zero dollars.
You may say blogs are worth something in terms of marketing. I say phooey. If I calculated all of the hours I’ve spent on this site and paid myself $10 an hour – I could have put my face on a fleet of buses. In all honesty, that would probably generate more, albeit less interesting cases, than this blog has earned me in the past 3 years.
My advice to anyone seeking to start a law blog is to view it as a hobby. If someone wants to sell you an expensive blog please call me. I’ll talk you out of it and I won’t even bill you for my time though perhaps should. I say this as someone who has created a blog that is successful beyond my wildest dreams.
If you want to blog because you think it’d be fun – I say go for it. If you’re interested in buying this blog please send me an email. I’m willing to sell it and continue doing what I’m doing for a reasonable hourly rate.