The Volokh Conspiracy
Mostly law professors | Sometimes contrarian | Often libertarian | Always independent
Launching the new JoshBlackman.com
All of my publications, media appearances, classes, and speaking events, indexed for perpetuity.
I launched my blog in September 2009, shortly after I graduated from law school. Initially, I hosted the site at JoshBlogs.wordpress.com. In November 2009, I moved the site to my own site, JoshBlackman.com. I had actually purchased that domain when I was in high school, but I let it expire at some point in college. Fortunately, the domain became available at just the right time. Over the following decade, I wrote more than 10,000 blog posts. But in 2019, Eugene and the gang invited me over to the Volokh Conspiracy. Since then, my personal blog has been frozen in time. It was time for a relaunch.
Today, I am proud to launch the new JoshBlackman.com. This site has indexed all of my publications, media appearances, classes, and speaking events. Plus, my 10,000 blog posts are archived for perpetuity. The site is built on WordPress, which allows me to do some cool things. I can quickly query all of my publications in a specific outlet, or all of my press appearances on a particular date. Plus, I can plot all of my speaking engagements on a Google Map. I am very proud of this site, which took nearly a year to build.
Feel free to click around. Here, I'll give a brief guided tour.
Home Page
I do a lot of things. It is very difficult to reduce my work to a single concept. On the home page, I divided my existence into ten attributes. I am a law professor. I am closely engaged in public policy debate at all levels. I regularly appear on TV and radio. My commentary is published in national outlets. I have authored three books (and counting). My scholarship has appeared in leading law reviews. I am the President of the Harlan Institute, a non-profit I am very proud of. My work with FantasySCOTUS represents my legal tech portfolio. And I have a strong social media presence. This interactive home page displays, graphically, all ten attributes.
Law Review Articles
SSRN's interface has never been updated. It is so 2000 and late. There is no aesthetically pleasing way to display all of your law review articles. On the site, I developed a clean, streamlined version. Articles are sorted by year. I used the journal's logo, or where a logo is not available, the law school's graphic. I omitted the detailed citation. Users can click onto SSRN if they wish to download the article, and find all of the details.
Commentary
In the commentary section, I've listed all of the op-eds I've written over the years. In total, I've published more than 200 commentaries.And, I built a query function that lets you drill down on specific outlets. For example, I can quickly locate all of my pieces in the Los Angeles Times.
Radio
Over the past decade, I have been on approximately 400 radio programs and podcasts. I was able to locate nearly all of these appearances, and uploaded them to SoundCloud. Alas, several of my earliest appearances have been lost to the sands of time. Podcasts have been deleted. Radio shows have been cancelled. A few radio stations have folded. And so on. This interface lets you quickly jump to a specific program, and play the embedded audio.
TV
By my count, I have appeared on more than 150 TV programs. These appearances peaked in 2017 and 2018 during the early days of Trump insanity. During certain periods of the travel ban litigation, I was on Fox Business almost every day of the week.
Things plateaued until the two impeachment trials. The Biden Administration has been (thankfully) quiet. I have been able to upload nearly all of those appearance to YouTube. Still, some of the earlier appearances have disappeared. For example, the once-ballyhooed HuffPo live has vanished from the face of the web.
Press
My most common media appearances have been in print, a term I define broadly to include traditional print outlets, as well as digital publications. By my count, I've had more than 1,300 press appearances. I think I've hit just about every national publication, as well as the leading international outlets. And many reporters continue to stay in touch with me as they move to different publications. Pro tip: always try to respond to press inquiries quickly–reporters value speed above almost all other attributes.
I have also created perma links of almost every store. Perma.cc allows you to create a permanent copy of a website. Even if the original site changes, or is deleted, your perma link remains. For example, here is a perma link of my recent Newsweek op-ed. I have created more than 2,000 perma links. Many sites, alas, do not work with Perma.cc. For example, many pages with paywalls and other features simply do not load. For most of those sites, I rely on the Internet Archive, which has indexed sites since the 1990s. Still, there are some sites that cannot be indexed by Perma.cc and are not recorded by the Internet Archive. Plus, there are other sites that have disappeared into the abyss. Gone.
Classes
I am proud of all the work I've done in the classroom. I have indexed all of my classes over the past decade. You can easily find my syllabus, exam, YouTube playlist, and other information. You can quickly see how I've changed over the years. I didn't use to need glasses. And my hair was much shorter. Hopefully, my next YouTube playlist will be in an actual classroom, and not in my home office.
Speaking
In the before times, I traveled around the country for speaking engagement. Almost all of those appearance are stored on YouTube or SoundCloud. Many professors, for whatever reason, decline to have the event recorded. And those appearances are lost to the ether.
I am especially fond of a feature that plots all of my speaking events on a Google Map. I often speak at the same school, many times. Hence, the clusters. I still haven't spoken in several states. In time, I hope to finish the map.
Amicus Briefs
I also maintain a robust amicus practice. Over the past four years, the bulk of the briefs were filed in the Emoluments Clauses litigation. And I've also sprinkled in briefs involving Obamacare, immigration, and guns. One of the virtues of my job is I can pick which cases I participate in. I will only sign an amicus brief as counsel where I am the primary author. I no longer join an amicus brief as a party.
Blog Archives
All of my blog posts are available on the new site. You can perform a full-text search, or scroll by month. I am in the process of planning out something of an endowment to support the site even after I'm gone. I would like my law school library to maintain this site in perpetuity. Khufu had pyramids. I have WordPress.
I hope you enjoy the new site! And please email me if you find any glitches or errors.