RIP, ILB

For 14 years (or thereabouts), the Indiana Law Blog of attorney Marcia Oddi handled the heavy lifting of Hoosier Law Blogdom (or is it Bloggery?) with fairly reliable daily content. As for new for-publication Opinions of the COA and SCOTSI, you could expect a cut-and-paste paragraph of the central holding but little or nothing (mostly the latter) in the way of analysis. This stream of appellate case review ran wide but exceedingly shallow. A better part of the ILB was content from outside contributors, such as Indy law professor Joel Schumm.

For most of the years that I knew the ILB, it carried some light advertising and solicited contributions from readers to sustain the service. I never wrote a check and never felt guilty about it. I think it was 2014 or 2015 when ILB Blogger Oddi took an announced break from new content while assessing the future of the ILB. It seemed that the meager revenues (which should have been enough to pay actual expenses) were deemed insufficient.

Then in early 2016 the ILB was discontinued for a time during the search for a “sole” sponsor. An Indy law firm obliged by sponsoring the ILB for a year. Unless I am very much mistaken, ILB Blogger Oddi sought income from her blog.

After the year of “sole” sponsorship, the ILB went “dark” on April 28, 2017 and remains so as of this writing. My feeling is that the ILB has been taken hostage once again with threats of death if the ransom goes unpaid. I choose to end the stalemate by declaring the ILB dead, at least to me.

The link (see Chosen Links page) to the ILB has been purged. The CLB will no longer cite the ILB or mention it approvingly. On my personal computers the ILB bookmark is deleted. Should the ILB ever return, I will read it (if at all) in secret.

As for the CLB, there is no rule against light advertising to pay blog expenses. However, readers will never be asked to contribute. Nor will readers ever be shamed for not contributing. If you wish to contribute, offer a comment or some “guest blogger” content. When the time comes that I can no longer maintain the CLB, it can be claimed (free of charge) by any articulate, competent, honest lawyer willing to undertake the task. It’s safe to enjoy the CLB. It will never be taken hostage.