When
blogging
platform
Typepad
announced
in
August
that
it
would
shut
down
on
Sept.
30,
2025,
it
threatened
to
erase
decades
of
legal
blog
posts
that
formed
a
body
of
scholarship
and
commentary.
In
response,
legal
blogging
platform
LexBlog
mounted
an
emergency
rescue
operation
that
has
preserved
579,162
legal
blog
posts
and
migrated
more
than
150
Typepad-hosted
sites,
pushing
the
LexBlog’s
library
past
one
million
preserved
posts.
The
effort
has
saved
not
just
the
content
itself,
but
an
important
piece
of
the
legal
profession’s
intellectual
history,
the
company
says,
insofar
as
blog
posts
serve
as
secondary
legal
sources,
capturing
practitioner
insights,
academic
analysis,
and
professional
commentary
that
lawyers
and
researchers
continue
to
rely
on.
For
example,
the
effort
saved
some
224,000
posts
from
51
blogs
that
were
part
of
the
Law
Professor
Blog
Network
(LPBN),
and
gave
16
of
those
blogs
a
new
home
on
the
LexBlog
platform.
As
LexBlog
CEO
Kevin
O’Keefe
put
it,
the
rescue
effort
was
about
preserving
an
essential
part
of
the
legal
record.
“Law
blogs
represent
an
essential
part
of
secondary
law,
capturing
commentary
and
analysis
that
lawyers,
academics
and
the
public
rely
upon,”
O’Keefe
said.
“When
Typepad
announced
its
shutdown,
we
knew
the
risk
of
losing
decades
of
this
legal
insight
and
commentary
from
practitioners,
academics
and
other
legal
professionals
was
real
—
and
unacceptable.
Preserving
it
wasn’t
just
a
service
to
authors,
it
was
a
service
to
the
law
itself.”
O’Keefe
credited
his
team
and
technology
platform
for
making
the
ambitious
project
possible.
“This
rescue
effort
reflects
the
dedication
and
talent
of
my
teammates
backed
by
the
strength
of
our
technology
platform.
In
this
project
alone
we
preserved
roughly
300,000
posts
—
pushing
the
LexBlog
network
past
one
million
preserved
legal
blog
posts
and
articles
in
total
—
and
gave
new
homes
to
leading
voices
in
the
profession.”
The
Numbers
LexBlog’s
preservation
work
encompassed
three
main
areas:
Law
Professor
Blog
Network
(LPBN):
The
company
secured
exports
for
51
blogs
from
the
LPBN,
representing
more
than
224,000
posts.
Of
these,
16
professors
have
already
transitioned
to
LexBlog’s
Stoddard
platform,
with
approximately
154,000
posts
now
live.
The
group
includes
faculty
from
major
universities
including
Pepperdine,
Texas
Tech,
Notre
Dame,
Yale
and
the
University
of
South
Carolina.
Attorney
blogs:
LexBlog
migrated
11
law
blogs
from
practicing
attorneys
and
law
firms,
totaling
35,162
posts.
These
include
blogs
from
firms
such
as
Sills
Cummis
&
Gross,
Dinsmore
&
Shohl
LLP,
and
Damon
Key
Leong
Kupchak
Hastert,
as
well
as
individual
practitioners.
Rescue
crawl:
For
more
than
100
non-LPBN
blogs
where
LexBlog
could
not
obtain
direct
login
access,
the
company
preserved
more
than
320,000
posts
via
targeted
web
scraping,
then
backfilled
images
and
PDFs
for
high-value
titles.
The
dual-track
approach
of
direct
exports
plus
rescue
crawling
resulted
in
minimal
expected
content
loss.
How
the
Rescue
Was
Done
According
to
LexBlog,
the
company
mobilized
a
three-phase
plan
of
discovery,
outreach
and
migration,
prioritizing
LPBN
sites
alongside
individual
legal
publishers.
Where
exports
were
available,
LexBlog
imported
the
archives;
when
they
were
not,
its
engineers
ran
a
rescue
crawl
to
capture
posts,
then
backfilled
images
and
PDFs
for
high-value
titles.
The
content
it
was
able
to
preserve
then
landed
on
either
new
LexBlog
sites
or
on
the
company’s
Open
Legal
Blog
Archive
to
maintain
public
access
To
minimize
downtime,
LexBlog
stood
up
pre-live
sites
on
its
WordPress-based
platform
so
authors
could
keep
publishing
while
their
archives
were
being
imported.
LPBN
blogs
received
standardized
branding
and
a
domain
pattern
that
enables
custom
domains
post-launch.
The
response
from
the
legal
community
reflected
the
stakes
involved.
According
to
Brian
Biddle,
LexBlog’s
head
of
design
and
product,
one
professor
wrote,
“Thank
you
for
taking
refugees!”
Another
said
they
would
be
moving
their
blog
“in
sackcloth
and
ashes
before
the
passing
of
the
LPBN.”
“The
response
from
the
legal
community
has
been
encouraging
—
editors
are
grateful,
and
leaders
across
the
profession
recognize
the
importance
of
safeguarding
these
voices,”
Biddle
said.
“Together
we’re
ensuring
that
legal
commentary
which
might
otherwise
disappear
remains
accessible
for
generations
to
come.”
Not
Everyone
Moved
Paul
L.
Caron,
dean
of
Pepperdine
University’s
Caruso
School
of
Law,
and
the
founder
and
owner
of
the
LPBN,
told
me
that
his
popular
TaxProf
Blog
is
not
among
those
that
will
move
to
LexBlog’s
publishing
platform.
He
told
me
that
he
will
have
further
news
about
the
future
of
his
blog
sometime
soon.
What’s
Next
As
noted,
a
number
of
former
Typepad
blogs
are
now
live
and
publishing
on
LexBlog,
with
additional
sites
rolling
out.
Post-launch
work
includes
quality
assurance
to
normalize
formatting,
targeted
media
backfill,
and
SEO
setup
with
sitemaps
and
search
console
registration.
LexBlog
also
presented
a
WordPress
training
session
for
LPBN
editors
and
authors,
which
was
recorded
for
reuse,
and
plans
to
present
additional
training
sessions.
The
company
envisions
establishing
a
dedicated
LPBN
Publishing
Network,
potentially
integrated
with
a
Law
School
Blog
Network
currently
under
discussion,
transforming
the
rescue
effort
into
a
living
community
of
law
professors
and
scholars
publishing
together.
In
a
LinkedIn
post
last
month,
O’Keefe
noted
that
the
community
response
to
Typepad’s
shutdown
stood
in
contrast
to
much
of
today’s
legal
content
creation.
“It’s
refreshing,
in
a
time
when
so
much
online
publishing
by
lawyers
and
law
firms
is
reduced
to
‘content
marketing’
for
search
performance
and
analytics,
to
see
legal
professionals
circle
the
wagons
around
publishing
for
its
real
value,
the
law
itself,”
he
said.