Top of the Posts at The Time Blawg – 15 Years
Top of the Posts at The Time Blawg. What are the top 15 blog posts?
This blog is 15 years old, as of yesterday (1 January 2026)!
On 1 January 2011 this blog materialised.
The Past
Back in 2011 it was common to call a law blog a blawg. I called it The Time Blawg as ‘The Time’ reflected the past, present and future practice of law. That is what I was going to blog about. Over the past 15 years I have, indeed, blogged (219 times) about the past, present and future practice of law. This has more often than not focussed on legal technology (like the Legal IT Curve, Metaverse Lawyers and Chatbots). In recent times also Legal Services Regulation Reform in Scotland.
A Catalyst
My posts often create a lot of debate on social media. Once upon a time that was on Twitter, these days on LinkedIn.
I make a point of reproducing that debate below the posts on the blog. This ensures they are not moments that will be lost in time, like tears in rain.
In my LinkedIn review of 2025 I was named a Catalyst:
“You put your ideas out there and got people talking, sparking fresh perspectives.”
Top of the Posts – Readers’ Choice
Let’s look back over those past 15 years, at the top 15 blog post (by viewer numbers):
- Tods Murray is no more – Another Scottish law firm bites the dust (2014)
- Atrium: A Post-mortem (2020)
- Lender Exchange Fiasco (2015)
- LLMs in Law: Hype v Magic (2023)
- Moving House, Automation, Lawyers and GenAI (2024)
- Is the Surface any good for lawyers? Part 1: First impressions (2012)
- Clubhouse is not for Lawyers – 12 Reasons (2021)
- Hallucination v Fugazi (2024)
- Big Law is so behind the legal IT curve (2014)
- Travels through the Blawgosphere #2 : Artificial Intelligence and Law ~ Robots replacing Lawyers? (2018)
- Is the Atrium ‘pivot’ really shades of Clearspire? (2020)
- Did the cost of legal IT kill Clearspire? (2014)
- Atrium’s mistakes from the Horse’s mouth : An analysis (2021)
- Law Smash: Lawyers do stand-up comedy (2014)
- Legal Geek 2018 : The One where Reality overtook Hype (2018)
That’s, interestingly, 13 posts on legal technology. With two about lawyers (the demise of a law firm, getting top billing, and lawyers doing stand-up comedy at number 14). The second highest viewed post was about the demise of a law firm that was also a legal tech company (as were three other top 15 posts).
Top of the Posts – My Choice
My own personal top 15 blog posts from the past 15 years (one from each year) are:
- 2011 – Law Firm Twitteratigate – The Whole Story – Misleading and pointless twitter ranking tables. 15 years later and similar goings on at LinkedIn with the ‘influencer’ lists.
- 2012 – LawTech Futures 2012 Reviewed: The Search for the Holy Grail of Legal Technology Conferences has Begun! – “LawTech Futures 2012 was very much about ideas but not a lot about practical experiences”. The ‘Holy Grail’ was getting law firm partners to attend Legal Tech conferences. With regard to both of these, some things never change when it comes to Legal Tech conferences.
- 2013 – Evolution or Extinction for Law Firms? – Still being debated, unnecessarily, 13 years later, now in relation to GenAI.
- 2014 – Big Law is so behind the legal IT curve – This suggestion kicked off a lot of debate and spawned several guest blog posts on the topic: Legal IT Curve
- 2015 – Notarising and Grass Cutting – Providing flexible and accessible legal services – How law firms can evolve to avoid extinction (see 2013) and it doesn’t involve AI.
- 2016 – Blogging about the Law – Top of the posts in 2016 because it was the only blog post on The Time Blawg that year!
- 2017 – CaseCrunch v Lawyers NOT Deep Blue v Kasparov – Before the GenAI hype age, we also had misleading claims about AI beating lawyers.
- 2018 – Travels through the Blawgosphere #2 : Artificial Intelligence and Law ~ Robots replacing Lawyers? – Introducing ‘The Seven Deadly Sins of Legal Tech Predictions’. Mandatory reading for anyone who may be persuaded to believe the hype.
- 2019 – Legal Tech start-ups need to beware of the Thomson Reuters competition – The dangers of Big Legal Tech v Legal Tech Start-ups and the fragility of a Legal Tech Journalist exposed.
- 2020 – Atrium: A Post-mortem – Why law firms building their own Legal Tech just might not be a good idea.
- 2021 – Clubhouse is not for Lawyers – 12 Reasons – It was going to be the next big thing but I saw the drawbacks.
- 2022 – Legal Services Regulation Reform in Scotland: Consultation Analysis Reviewed – Part 2: The Potential Regulatory Models – A missed opportunity for real regulatory reform of legal services in Scotland. Part of a series on Legal Services Regulation Reform in Scotland.
- 2023 – A Teenager’s view of the Metaverse: “A term that is made fun of” – Part of a series on Metaverse Lawyers.
- 2024 – Moving House, Automation, Lawyers and GenAI – The use of AI in legal process is more complex than made out when it is suggested that it will replace jobs that it simply cannot do. Part of a series on Chatbots.
- 2025 – The GenAI Verification Burden in Legal Practice – A real problem that many are unfortunately ignoring.
Only five of those appear in the readers’ top 15.
The Future
I will continue to blog about issues that take my interest concerning the past, present and future practice of law. That will include what my readers are clearly interested in. Which is legal technology and the demise of law firms / tech companies. In addition, I will blog about things that are perhaps more interesting to a smaller number of my readers. That might include Legal Services Regulation Reform in Scotland!
I will try to continue being a catalyst .
And, if you want to do a guest post about your past, present and future practice of law do let me know.
Image credit: Image created by GenAI using Top of the Pops (© BBC) logo as a base/inspiration.
Reactions to Top of the Posts at The Time Blawg – 15 Years
On LinkedIn the following comments have been made:-
Alex Heshmaty (Legal Content Specialist):
I tried to find one of your oldest blogs on your lists – https://thetimeblawg.com/2013/10/06/evolution-or-extinction-for-law-firms/ – and it’s funny how we are discussing similar issues today, about the potential extinction of lawyers due to tech. Coincidentally, yesterday I decided to dip into Susskind’s Tomorrow’s Lawyers which has been sitting on my bookshelf for many years unopened, and it’s interesting to see how some of his predictions have arguably come about (GenAI) whereas others are way off (eg ABS becoming universal).
Me:
Indeed. That is why I picked that one from 2013. We are always discussing it but it never seems to happen. Indeed, in my last post of 2025, I highlighted how in Australia there is an increase in the hiring of lawyers to clean up the slop being created by GenAI. https://thetimeblawg.com/2025/12/28/genai-v-verification-debate-the-salient-points/
… and with regard to Tomorrow’s Lawyers, I reviewed that back in 2013. 13 years later and not that much dramatic change. Use by courts of video technology is probably the biggest one but driven by the pandemic rather than anything else. There have been at least a couple of new editions since then, but still not cottoned on to some of the new roles that have actually been created in law for today’s lawyers e.g. The Legal Process Engineer 😉 https://thetimeblawg.com/2013/04/07/tomorrows-lawyers-reviewed/
Alex Heshmaty:
Although AI is often touted as a boon for access to justice, the AI slop is potentially having a detrimental effect overall. I’ve heard that employment tribunals are collapsing under the strain of AI empowered litigants in person – and while it’s great that they are finding tools to assert their rights, if their claims are bogus and propped up by sycophantic chatbots, then this is probably going to impact genuine claimants by clogging up the pipeline.
Me:
And increase work for lawyers if/when the litigants in person turn to lawyers to sort out the mess GenAI had created for them.
Alex Heshmaty:
It seems to me that the problem now is not “irrational rejectionism” but “irrational implementation” of GenAI products. Most of the job ads I see now require “AI skills” of some description, as employers have presumably been told they need to embrace AI at all costs!
Me:
Indeed. One large law firm have mandated all their people to use Microsoft Copilot as often as possible. Crazy.