Legal Week's blogroll - the five most-read and five tips to be the most read

Around the time of Alex Aldridge's blogging feature and Sofia Lind's complementary article on lawyers and social media in October last year, a worrying addiction to Twitter had begun to develop in Legal Week's sumptuous Soho offices.

Much time spent 'researching' on the site helped us to uncover a fast-growing legal community among Twitter's burgeoning membership. The next step in December was for Legal Week to start regularly hosting blogs from outside contributors on the Legal Village section of our website.

We've since published a total of 50, with both the first and the most recent provided by barrister Adam Wagner of the superb UK Human Rights Blog, one of our more prolific contributors. (Legal Bizzle also deserves a special mention for making the realities of life at the coalface for in-house lawyers accessible, engaging and, yes, funny. And while we're on the subject, ObiterJ hasn't yet reached the audience he deserves).

Topics covered in the 10 weeks since we started publishing pieces from external bloggers have included education, the relationship between in-house and 'out-house' lawyers, Wikileaks, free speech, human rights and the media, and some characteristic surrealism from the inimitable Charon QC - with in-house lawyer Melanie Hatton recently becoming the first of our external bloggers to feature in our print edition.

But which have proved most popular with our readers? Here are a few of the lessons we've learned from publishing law blogs on legalweek.com:

1. Keep it topical. On Twitter it's 'move fast or die'. Or rather, 'tweet fast or die'. Something that happened on Twitter an hour ago is already old news. This obviously isn't quite so extreme for blogs themselves, but it still applies. Blogs on the most-talked about issues of the day, written quickly and accurately, will always do well.

2. Have a catchy title. A good headline or hook is crucial, with a provocative quote or question likely to draw more people in. Everyone knows this, but not everyone is good at it.

3. Give it some character - and it doesn't have to be your own. Some of the best legal bloggers write behind pseudonyms and alter egos (advisable if you'd like to publish forthright views about your superiors and/or employers).

4. A bit of glamour helps. Law's not always the most camera-friendly industry, so blogs relating to issues such as supermodel Naomi Campbell's right to privacy serve as a nice counterpoint to more weighty pontifications on, say, legal regulation. Not that our readers are shallow, of course.

5. Use lists. People love lists. In particular, blogs featuring five points often do well.

So in that spirit, the top five most-read legal blogs published on Legal Week to date are:

1. It's not about the biscuits - do you buy law firms, or lawyers? - Legal Bizzle

2. "It's the thick ones that say they want to be barristers from day one" - Richard Moorhead

3. 'So, candidate, why do you want to work at a City firm?' - Ashley Connick

4. Has Assange of WikiLeaks actually committed a crime? - Charon QC

5. Why US lawyers don't want their boss's job - Tim Bratton

We'll be continuing to support legal blogging on Legal Week - we feel it's been a great success so far and we're still open to new contributors. If you've got something to offer and you'd like to get involved, you can email me at ben.wheway@legalweek.com or contact us via Twitter at @legal_week or @benwheway.