Here’s a message I got from a reader:
I’m writing to thank you for your contribution to the legal blogosphere because it was the primary influence that positively affected my most recent grades. While I can’t prove causation, I feel comfortable with the assertion that your blog was a big help. As such, I view your blog as a great legal educational tool in addition to its entertainment value.
I’m currently a 3L. I started reading your blog (daily, sometimes 3 times a day) at the beginning of last summer or maybe in the spring of my 2L year. Over several months of reading entries on the Volokh Conspiracy, I began to acquire significantly better analytical skills. I noticed it in my day-to-day conversations among friends and in my school work.
I’d performed well in my first two years, but I didn’t really understand what it meant to write a good law school exam. This last semester, I went into my examines with the confidence that I was going to write ‘A’ exams (and I did for the most part). My confidence and the knowledge supporting it was, in large part, a product of reading your blog.
The Volokh Conspiracy provides great examples of law school test writing. Frequently, the posts on your blog involve the application of law to facts. Of course, such law-to-fact application can be found in lots of places. But your blog is superior; it does a great job of law-to-fact application with a large variety of legal issues and a large variety of fact patterns. In addition to the wide variety of laws and facts, your posters tend to write more clearly, economically, and persuasively than other blogs, long form law review articles, or cases.
Additionally, the comments section of your blog is often filled with insightful critiques of the posts, which further enhances my analytical skills.
Some of my improvement was the natural product of working hard in law school. But a large part of it was my daily dose of The Volokh Conspiracy.
Thank you for your time. Please continue the good work.
Sincerely,
Adam Levin
Use these numbers for comparison, your mileage may vary, but, hey, if it worked for Mr. Levin, I’m delighted to hear it.