When running a blog platform Typepad announced in August that it could shut down on Sept. 30, 2025, it threatened to erase many years of authorized weblog posts that shaped a physique of scholarship and commentary. In response, authorized running a blog platform LexBlog mounted an emergency rescue operation that has preserved 579,162 authorized weblog posts and migrated greater than 150 Typepad-hosted websites, pushing the LexBlog’s library previous a million preserved posts.
The trouble has saved not simply the content material itself, however an necessary piece of the authorized occupation’s mental historical past, the corporate says, insofar as weblog posts function secondary authorized sources, capturing practitioner insights, educational evaluation, {and professional} commentary that legal professionals and researchers proceed to depend on.
For instance, the hassle saved some 224,000 posts from 51 blogs that have been a part of the Law Professor Blog Network (LPBN), and gave 16 of these blogs a brand new dwelling on the LexBlog platform.
As LexBlog CEO Kevin O’Keefe put it, the rescue effort was about preserving a vital a part of the authorized report.
“Regulation blogs characterize a vital a part of secondary legislation, capturing commentary and evaluation that legal professionals, lecturers and the general public depend upon,” O’Keefe stated. “When Typepad introduced its shutdown, we knew the danger of shedding many years of this authorized perception and commentary from practitioners, lecturers and different authorized professionals was actual — and unacceptable. Preserving it wasn’t only a service to authors, it was a service to the legislation itself.”
O’Keefe credited his group and expertise platform for making the bold mission potential. “This rescue effort displays the dedication and expertise of my teammates backed by the energy of our expertise platform. On this mission alone we preserved roughly 300,000 posts — pushing the LexBlog community previous a million preserved authorized weblog posts and articles in complete — and gave new houses to main voices within the occupation.”
The Numbers
LexBlog’s preservation work encompassed three essential areas:
Regulation Professor Weblog Community (LPBN): The corporate secured exports for 51 blogs from the LPBN, representing greater than 224,000 posts. Of those, 16 professors have already transitioned to LexBlog’s Stoddard platform, with roughly 154,000 posts now dwell. The group contains college from main universities together with Pepperdine, Texas Tech, Notre Dame, Yale and the College of South Carolina.
Legal professional blogs: LexBlog migrated 11 legislation blogs from practising attorneys and legislation corporations, totaling 35,162 posts. These embrace blogs from corporations similar to Sills Cummis & Gross, Dinsmore & Shohl LLP, and Damon Key Leong Kupchak Hastert, in addition to particular person practitioners.
Rescue crawl: For greater than 100 non-LPBN blogs the place LexBlog couldn’t receive direct login entry, the corporate preserved greater than 320,000 posts through focused net scraping, then backfilled photos and PDFs for high-value titles.
The twin-track method of direct exports plus rescue crawling resulted in minimal anticipated content material loss.
How the Rescue Was Completed
In response to LexBlog, the corporate mobilized a three-phase plan of discovery, outreach and migration, prioritizing LPBN websites alongside particular person authorized publishers. The place exports have been accessible, LexBlog imported the archives; after they weren’t, its engineers ran a rescue crawl to seize posts, then backfilled photos and PDFs for high-value titles.
The content material it was capable of protect then landed on both new LexBlog websites or on the corporate’s Open Authorized Weblog Archive to keep up public entry
To attenuate downtime, LexBlog stood up pre-live websites on its WordPress-based platform so authors might maintain publishing whereas their archives have been being imported. LPBN blogs acquired standardized branding and a website sample that allows customized domains post-launch.
The response from the authorized group mirrored the stakes concerned. In response to Brian Biddle, LexBlog’s head of design and product, one professor wrote, “Thanks for taking refugees!” One other stated they’d be shifting their weblog “in sackcloth and ashes earlier than the passing of the LPBN.”
“The response from the authorized group has been encouraging — editors are grateful, and leaders throughout the occupation acknowledge the significance of safeguarding these voices,” Biddle stated. “Collectively we’re guaranteeing that authorized commentary which could in any other case disappear stays accessible for generations to return.”
Not Everybody Moved
Paul L. Caron, dean of Pepperdine College’s Caruso College of Regulation, and the founder and proprietor of the LPBN, informed me that his standard TaxProf Weblog isn’t amongst these that can transfer to LexBlog’s publishing platform.
He informed me that he could have additional information about the way forward for his weblog someday quickly.
What’s Subsequent
As famous, quite a lot of former Typepad blogs at the moment are dwell and publishing on LexBlog, with further websites rolling out. Submit-launch work contains high quality assurance to normalize formatting, focused media backfill, and web optimization setup with sitemaps and search console registration.
LexBlog additionally offered a WordPress coaching session for LPBN editors and authors, which was recorded for reuse, and plans to current further coaching periods. The corporate envisions establishing a devoted LPBN Publishing Community, doubtlessly built-in with a Regulation College Weblog Community at the moment below dialogue, reworking the rescue effort right into a dwelling group of legislation professors and students publishing collectively.
In a LinkedIn post final month, O’Keefe famous that the group response to Typepad’s shutdown stood in distinction to a lot of at this time’s authorized content material creation. “It’s refreshing, in a time when a lot on-line publishing by legal professionals and legislation corporations is lowered to ‘content material advertising’ for search efficiency and analytics, to see authorized professionals circle the wagons round publishing for its actual worth, the legislation itself,” he stated.
