Empirical Legal Studies

Forum on the Law Review Selection Process

Over the next couple of weeks, the law journal submission season will enter full swing. Because there are only a limited number of publication slots at elite law journals—and there is a perception, if not a reality, that a strong placement affects pay, promotion, and lateral offers—this positional competition creates severe angst among law professors that often ends in disappointment.

To help elucidate the inner-workings of this process, the ELS Blog will be hosting a forum today and tomorrow (August 14-15) on a recent empirical study by Jason Nance and Dylan Steinberg, “The Law Review Article Selection Process: Results from a National Study.”  The authors are 2006 graduates of the University of Pennsylvania Law School, where they served as Articles Editors on the University of Pennsylvania Law Review.  Both authors are currently serving as clerks in the federal judiciary.

This forum will also include commentary on the Nance-Steinberg study by Benjamin Barton (Tennessee Law), Christine Hurt (Illinois Law and The Conglomerate), Ahmed Taha (Wake Forest Law), and our own Chris Zorn. I will begin the forum with a short summary of the Nance-Steinberg study.

New ICPSR Data Releases

New ICPSR data releases, here.   One of the datasets that caught my eye was American Terrorism Study, 1980-2002.

Untangling the Causal Effects of Sex on Judging

Boyd, Epstein and Martin have written Untangling the Causal Effects of Sex on Judging.  The Abstract:

We enter the debate over the role of sex in judging by addressing the two predominant empirical questions it raises: whether male and female judges decide cases distinctly (individual effects) and whether the presence of a female judge on a panel causes her male colleagues to behave differently (panel effects). We do not, however, rely exclusively on the predominant statistical models - variants of standard regression analysis - to address them. Because these tools alone are ill-suited to the task at hand, we deploy a more appropriate methodology - non-parametric matching - which follows from a formal framework for causal inference.

Applying matching methods to sex discrimination suits resolved in the federal circuits between 1995 and 2002 yields two clear results. First, we observe substantial individual effects: The likelihood of a judge deciding in favor of the party alleging discrimination decreases by about 10 percentage points when the judge is a male. Likewise, we find that men are significantly more likely to rule in favor of the rights litigant when a woman serves on the panel. Both effects are so persistent and consistent that they may come as a surprise even to those scholars who have long posited the existence of gendered judging.

The Empirics of Age, Entrepreneurship, and Creativity

Over at Conglomerate, Gordon Smith briefly discusses and links to a blog entry by Marc Andreessen that takes up the query: "Is entrepreneurship more like poetry, pure mathematics, and theoretical physics -- which exhibit a peak age in one's late 20s or early 30s -- or novel writing, history, philosophy, medicine, and general scholarship -- which exhibit a peak age in one's late 40s or early 50s?"  The Andreessen post includes snippets from a 1988 paper by Dean Simonton (UC Davis, Psych). Evidently, Prof. Simontron has conducted "extensive research on age and creativity across many other fields, including science, literature, music, chess, film, politics, and military combat."

Replace the term "entrepreneurship" with "legal scholarship" and you'll see why such research might interest legal scholars (of all ages).

Will of the Minority: Rule of Four on the United States Supreme Court

Johnson and Fang have written Will of the Minority: Rule of Four on the United States Supreme Court.  The Abstract:

The Rule of 4 on the U.S. Supreme Court is one of the only positive powers held by a minority coalition in our federal government (other minority powers are largely negative, such as the filibuster). In this paper we provide a formal model that explores the conditions under which we would expect the Rule of 4 to be invoked by a minority of justices on the Court. We also model the conditions under which such a vote under this rule will be successful. These models lead to explicit hypotheses about each part of the Court's agenda setting process. Using data from 1953 to 1985 we then empirically test our hypotheses. The results indicate that when the pivotal certiorari justice has preferences close to the status quo and when this pivot is ideologically close to the Court median she is more likely to vote to grant certiorari. Finally, our results indicate that such a vote can and is successful when the median justice is ideologically close to the status quo.

Ideological Drift-Repost

In my zeal to talk about Professor Farnsworth's paper, I did not remember that it has already been posted previously by Jason on the blog.  Rather than remove the post entirely, I would like to put in a plug for downloading the paper, see here, and to refer readers to Jason's prior post on the issue, see here.  Thanks for your patience, and sorry to all those readers who had a feeling of deja vu.

Stats Training Suggestions

I just returned from my annual sojourn teaching at the ICPSR's Summer Program in Quantitative Methods. Most of the courses there -- which range in technical difficulty from Introduction to Computing  and basic math to Bayesian methods, LISREL, and advanced game theory -- are four-week courses, populated mostly by graduate students from Ph.D. programs in sociology, political science, and other similar fields.

One thing I've always wondered, though, was how the program might attract more individuals who are later in their careers.  A tenure-track professor in any discipline can hardly afford to give up a month of their life to learn a statistical technique they may only use for a single project.  Yet, it's often exactly such individuals who could most benefit from training of this sort.

The ICPSR has begun moving in this direction in recent years, offering greater numbers of three- and five-day workshops and holding courses outside of Ann Arbor (which is, however pleasant in the summertime, a bit off the beaten path).  But they (we) could obviously do more.  So I ask: What would you look for in a summer (or winter/spring break) course in methods?  What characteristics (pedagogical, logistical, whatever) would make you more likely to enroll in such a course?

Another Helpful Stats Blog

While not geared towards legal scholars or legal scholarship per se,  Andrew Gelman (Columbia) edits a blog I've found helpful on more than one occasion. Some of the "nuts-and-bolts" coding, software, and graphical display posts, as well as the multi-disciplinary approach, are quite useful.

Con Law Conference Call for Papers

TO: Constitutional Law Professors

FROM: Planning Committee for the 2008 AALS Conference on Constitutional Law

SUBJECT: Call for Papers

The 2008 AALS Conference on Constitutional Law will be held at the AALS Mid-Year Meeting on June 3-6, 2008, at the Renaissance Cleveland Hotel, Cleveland, Ohio. In recognition of the growing significance of positive legal scholarship in the development of constitutional law and theory, the Committee has designated one session of the conference for the presentation of papers devoted to this topic. Up to four papers will be selected for presentation. Papers will be presented at moderated, concurrent sessions. The faculty members chosen must register for the Conference and will be responsible for their own travel and other expenses.

Topic: Papers must discuss or (preferably) demonstrate how empirical and/or positive legal scholarship can inform constitutional theory or doctrine.

Paper Requirements: Works-in-progress will be accepted, although fully completed papers will be given preference. If a work-in-progress is selected for presentation, it is expected that a full paper will be available for distribution prior to the conference date.

Papers should not exceed 25,000 words. Papers that will be published prior to Fall 2007 are not eligible. Papers accepted for publication but not published prior to Fall 2007 are eligible.

Deadline: All papers must be received no later than December 15, 2007. Authors whose papers are selected for presentation will be notified no later than March 31, 2008. The faculty members chosen must register for the Conference and presenters will be responsible for their own travel and other expenses.

Please e-mail your submissions to Gehan Girguis, AALS Executive Assistant at ggirguis@aals.org, with "Con Law Call for Papers" noted in the subject line of your message. Attach separately a brief cover letter including your name, contact information, and the title of your submission. Please delete from your submission itself any information identifying you or your school affiliation.

Empirical Legal Studies panel at SEALS Conference

Today, I have the privilege to being on a panel at the Southeastern Association of Law Schools annual meeting, entitled "The 'Ins' and 'Outs' of Empirical Research."  The panel was put together by Benjamin Barton (Tennessee), and I am splitting time with Stefanie Lindquist (Vanderbilt) and Ahmed Taha (Wake Forest).

As I was preparing for my talk, I realized that I was the only presenter who did not have a PhD -- and I am going last on the program.  I plan on stealing the show with my topic, "Empiricism for the Non-PhD Law Professor"-- something that is likely to resonant with 90 percent of the audience.  I am building on some of the themes set forth in my April 2006 post, ELS on the Cheap (i.e., without Graduate School).

The SEALS sessions tend to be large (even discounting for my participation on the program), so I am posting two handouts here in the event we run short:

1. Useful Reference Texts on Statistical Analysis ... on my bookshelf [here]
2. Sources of External Funding (SUNY Buffalo Law) [here]