Empirical Legal Studies

The Original Quant "Boot Camp" for Law Profs

On Wednesday, May 25, 2011 through Friday, May 27, 2011, Lee Epstein and Andrew Martin will be teaching their annual Conducting Empirical Legal Scholarship workshop.  This workshop will be held in Chicago, and is co-sponsored by Northwestern University and Washington University.  There is more information available about the workshop here:

        http://www.law.northwestern.edu/faculty/empiricalworkshop/esw/

The Conducting Empirical Legal Scholarship workshop is for law school and social science faculty interested in learning about empirical research.  The instructors provide the formal training  necessary to design, conduct, and assess empirical studies, and to use statistical software (Stata) to analyze and manage data. Participants need no background or knowledge of statistics to enroll in the workshop.  Topics to be covered include research design, sampling, measurement, descriptive statistics, inferential statistics, and linear regression.

Please visit the website for all logistical details.

Another Quant "Boot Camp" for Law Profs

George Mason University School of Law's Law and Economics Center is hosting a Workshop on Empirical and Experimental Methods for Law Professors on May 23-26, 2011, in Arlington, VA. Interestingly, this is the second entrant into a growing market for programs specifically addressing law professors and empirical legal scholarship. (We've previously noted similar programs jointly sponsored by Wash U/Northwestern.) A more detailed description of the GMU Workshop, as well as contact information, follow.

"The Workshop on Empirical and Experimental Methods for Law Professors is designed to teach law professors the conceptual and practical skills required to (1) understand and evaluate others’ empirical studies, and (2) design and implement their own empirical studies.  Participants are not expected to have background in statistical knowledge or empirical skills prior to enrollment.  Instructors have been selected in part to demonstrate the development of empirical studies in a wide-range of legal and institutional settings including: antitrust, business law, bankruptcy, class actions, contracts, criminal law and sentencing, federalism, finance, intellectual property, and securities regulation.  Class sessions will provide participants opportunities to learn through faculty lectures, drawing upon data and examples for cutting edge empirical legal studies, and participating in experiments.   There will be numerous opportunities for participants to discuss their own works-in-progress or project ideas with the instructors.

The Workshop will begin on Monday May 23, at 8:30 a.m. and conclude on Thursday May 26, at 12 pm.  Classes on May 23, 24 and 25 will run from 8:30 am to 5pm, and include lectures, group sessions, and opportunities for participants to present their own empirical projects or “works in progress.”

Tuition for the Workshop on Empirical and Experimental Methods is $850 for the first professor from a law school and $500 for additional registrants from the same school.

Those interested in the Workshop should contact Jeff Smith directly at:

jsmithQ@gmu.edu  t:703.993.8181

PoLAR: Political and Legal Anthropology Review

An announcement from the editors of PoLAR:

LEADING LAW and SOCIAL SCIENCE JOURNAL moved from Cornell to Wisconsin!

No, not JELS – PoLAR: Political and Legal Anthropology Review, the leading journal of political and legal anthropology in the United States, which moved its editorial office to the University of Wisconsin Law School from Cornell in recent years.

The latest research on law and politics around the world, giving you in-depth analyses of developments from the ground level.  How do changing political and legal contexts affect indigenous peoples?  What happens when global law hits the ground?  Are regulatory approaches inspired by Western democracies readily adapted to other settings?

Read about the surprising effects of “environmental impact assessments” in Peru, about subtle connections between the government and drug traffickers in Brazil, or about how the World Bank and IMF indirectly changed the government of Malawi.

Catch PoLAR’s NOVEMBER 2010 issue on NGOs around the world and the companion Virtual Issue on NGOs, available on PoLAR’s website:

PoLAR also features OPEN ACCESS original on-line content on topics such as the ethnographic study of trials, the anthropological study of crime, the legal issues facing Native Americans – with interviews of leading anthropologists.

Visit PoLAR’s home page . . . and stay tuned as PoLAR makes its newest move to a shared editorship that brings together law schools and anthropology departments at the University of North Carolina, the University of Wisconsin, and the University of California at Irvine.

 

Jobs, Jobs, Jobs

Our good friends at the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Law and Social Sciences (LSS) Program asked that I share the following employment opportunities. Job descriptions and contact information follow. (Please note the 1.27.2011 application deadline.)

***

TITLE: Program Director, Law & Social Sciences, National Science Foundation, Arlington, VA

DESCRIPTION: The Law and Social Sciences (LSS) Program at the National Science Foundation (NSF) has an opening for the Program Director position. The LSS Program recently expanded to two program directors and one of the current Program Directors is scheduled to “rotate” back to their home institution in late July 2011. The position will have an expected start date of July 31, 2011. 

This year, there are two postings for the LSS Program Director Position at NSF:

1) A permanent version (E20110012). USAJOBS Link: http://jobview.usajobs.gov/GetJob.aspx?OPMControl=2097956, and   

2) A rotator version (E20110013 Rotator) for a 2 year position where the person “rotates” back to their home institution after that time. USAJOBS Link: http://jobview.usajobs.gov/GetJob.aspx?OPMControl=2098881

These postings are separate and distinct, so interested individuals can apply to one or both depending on their desire to engage with NSF on either a temporary or permanent basis. The application deadline is January 27, 2011.

2010 CELS Program

For those who cannot attend and are interested, the 2010 CELS Program is here.

Time-sharing Experiments for the Social Sciences (TESS)

An ElsBlog friend, Jennifer Robbennolt (Ill.), seeks to raise awareness of the TESS project (described below) and the opportunities it presents for legal researchers and asked that I share the following information. I am happy to oblige.

Time-sharing Experiments for the Social Sciences (TESS) is an NSF-supported infrastructure project that enables scholars (including graduate students, post-docs, and faculty) to conduct original experiments on nationally representative samples at no cost to the investigator.

TESS proposals are peer-reviewed and successful projects that are fielded using a nationally-representative internet survey panel (Knowledge Networks). This platform offers the opportunity for surveys of the general United States population, as well as specific subpopulations that are often challenging for researchers to study.

The application process is simple, and the turn-around time is generally quite fast -- and our expanded capabilities mean that scholars can now conduct more complicated experiments than in the past.

To learn more about our capabilities and eligibility, visit the TESS website at: http://tess.experimentcentral.org

ABF Research Professor

Pending budgetary approval, the American Bar Foundation (ABF) invites applications to join its Residential Research Faculty as Research Professors beginning in the 2011-12 academic year.

 

We seek candidates with distinguished records of scholarship in law and the social sciences or demonstrated potential for such accomplishments.  Research area, discipline, methodology, and rank are open.  The ABF is strongly committed to diversity in hiring.

 

The ABF is an independent, scholarly research institute committed to social science research on law, legal institutions, and legal processes.  Its faculty consists of leading scholars in the fields of law, sociology, psychology, political science, economics, history, and anthropology.  Research Professors may be appointed either full- or part-time.  When Research Professors are jointly appointed with law or social science faculties of Chicago-area institutions, the ABF works closely with these institutions to coordinate on matters such as salary, benefits, and other work arrangements.

 

The Appointments Committee will begin reviewing applications on August 15, 2010.  We ask that applicants submit a letter of application, a curriculum vitae, a brief (no more than 2-page) description of current research and plans for future research, and a list of three references.

 

Application letters should be addressed to Robert Nelson, Director, and sent in electronic form to Roz Caldwell, Senior Administrative Assistant, at roz@abfn.org with the subject line “Faculty Search.”  Queries about the application process can be directed to Ms. Caldwell at (312)988-6531.

More on ELS, Law Libraries, and Faculty Research Support

Increasingly, as one colleague recently remarked, "[l]aw school libraries across the nation ... have either hired or actively sought to hire an empirical research librarian, often a MLS holding librarian with a masters or Ph.D. in one of the social sciences, to assist law professors with data retrieval and analysis." Such law libraries include: University of Texas, Cornell, Duke, Georgetown, Fordham, to name but a few. I know that I benefit from tremendous research and library support at Cornell (and am grateful for it). I'd be interested in hearing from others about what ELS-specific library research support they receive or would like to receive.

Finally, to this end, I want to draw those interested to Fordham Law School Library's current search for a Reference Librarian/Empirical Research Specialist. Those interested should contact the Head of Reference, Karin Johnsrud, at johnsrud@law.fordham.edu

UPDATE: Loyal ELS Blog readers noted that opportunities exist at more than the Fordham Law School Library for a specialist in empirical legal studies. Duke Law School's library is also actively looking for an Empirical Research Associate (see job posting at: http://www.law.duke.edu/jobs/index). Those interested should contact Richard Danner directly (at: zad@law.duke.edu).

Call For Proposals -- Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Public Health Law Research Program (PHLR)

A new call for proposals (CFP) from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Public Health Law Research Program (PHLR) has been released today.  The CFP is available at www.publichealthlawresearch.org
 
While PHLR funds studies that mainly focus on the intersection of law and public health, researchers from other disciplines, such as medicine, economics, sociology, psychology, public policy and public administration are encouraged to be part of multi-disciplinary teams of applicants. Research teams that include government agencies, community organizations, and advocacy and policy related groups are especially encouraged to apply.
 
This year's CFP will have about $3.5 million available for funding studies at two levels.  Short-term studies will be funded up to $150,000 each for up to 18 months, while complex and comprehensive legal and public health studies will be funded up to $450,000 each for up to 30 months. The deadline for submitting brief proposals is April 14, 2010.

A press release can be found at:
http://publichealthlawresearch.org/news/new-call-proposals-issued-public-health-law-research-program

Post-Doc Opportunity at Wash U

The Center for Empirical Research in the Law (CERL) at
the Washington University School of Law is offering a
postdoctoral fellowship for scholars with a Ph.D. in
political science, economics, psychology, sociology, statistics,
or other social sciences.  The fellow will perform data management,
data analysis, and computer programming on a variety of Center-sponsored
projects.  Expertise with statistical software, scripting languages,
and database systems preferred. There are no teaching
responsibilities.

Candidates must possess a Ph.D. at the time of appointment.  Salary
will be competitive and commensurate with experience.  The fellowship
will be for a term of one year, with renewal possible.  Applicants
should electronically send a letter of interest, a curriculum vita,
two letters of recommendation, a writing sample, and a statement of
planned research to: Beth Vogl, CERL Administrative Coordinator,
bvogl@law.wustl.edu.

Applications will begin being considered on February 22, 2010.  Please
contact Professor Andrew D. Martin (CERL Director) at admartin@wustl.edu
with any substantive questions.

For more information please see: http://cerl.wustl.edu