Sad news in the legal blogging world, as the Wall Street Journal on Monday shut down its Law Blog, which has regularly covered and broke legal news since its launch in 2006.

The closing came as part of the news organization’s shut down of eight blogs on Monday covering a range of topics, according to the NiemanLab.

Ashby Jones, chief of the WSJ’s Law Bureau, wrote:

Law Blog was the first of its kind at the WSJ and was an immediate hit, attracting readers from all corners of the legal world. Its success helped usher in a sort of Golden Age for blogs at WSJ and encourage the growth of a wider, legal blogosphere.

Jones tells me that he does not expect the WSJ’s legal reporting to change much. Already, most of it was going not to the blog, but to the print paper or the main website. The Law Blog’s lead writer, Jacob Gershman, will continue writing legal-affairs stories that will feed to the main offerings, rather than to the blog, Jones says.

Here’s my post reporting the Law Blog’s launch back in January 2006.

Photo of Bob Ambrogi Bob Ambrogi

Bob is a lawyer, veteran legal journalist, and award-winning blogger and podcaster. In 2011, he was named to the inaugural Fastcase 50, honoring “the law’s smartest, most courageous innovators, techies, visionaries and leaders.” Earlier in his career, he was editor-in-chief of several legal publications, including The National Law Journal, and editorial director of ALM’s Litigation Services Division.