Several readers have asked why I am not participating in a “best of blogging” competition for law student blogs. The answer is simple: the competition is a scam.

It works as follows:

NoName Legal Website (NLW) needs visitors. NLW has no credibility because it is a content aggregator and offers little (or no) original content. Snooze.

But NLW has a plan! Lawyers and Law students love competition and arbitrary rankings. Heck, all the law schools in the country tout their US News Ranking while simultaneously bitching about how ridiculous the rankings are.

So NLW creates its own rankings of the top law school bloggers. NLW informs the bloggers of their nominations through pingbacks and emails. The student bloggers mention the competition and link back to NLW. The new traffic helps NLW build a reputation and to compensate for its lack of original content.

NLW now has visitors without paying for advertising space.

Isn’t that brilliant?

Well, I’m not taking part in NoName Legal Website’s marketing ploy. If NLW wants to advertise on my blog, then they can pay me.

This blog only has room for links to advertisements and recommendations. And since I want my recommendations to mean something, I refuse to recommend a website that is a second-rate version of Princeton Review or TLS.

The idea of ranking law student blogs is rather stupid anyway because this is such a small niche. There are very few active student blogs, and the “top” blogs can be found at the weekly roundups on Evan Schaeffer’s Legal Underground and But No Thanks.

If you REALLY need a listing of the “best law school bloggers” then there is one over at Bitter Lawyer. The difference between Bitter Lawyer and NoName Legal Website is that Bitter Lawyer actually produces original (and hilarious) content, and doesn’t mention student blogs solely for the free advertising.

To all the other students nominated for NoName Legal Website’s top law student list: Congratulations, you’re fabulous, but you didn’t need a NoName website to tell you that.