Empirical Legal Studies

Content Analysis

Dan Katz (MSU) let me know about a beta release of new website, Legal Language Explorer, that will likely interest anyone who does content analysis as well as those looking for a neat (and, according to Jason Mazzone, addictive) toy to burn some time. The site, according to Dan, allows users: "the chance [free of charge] to search the history of the United States Supreme Court (1791-2005) for any phrase and get a frequency plot and the full text case results for that phrase." Dan also reports that the developers hope to expand coverage beyond Supreme Court decisions in the future.

Legal Scholarship Network

Legal Scholarship Network Professional Announcements and Job Openings December 7, 2011 Published by the LEGAL SCHOLARSHIP NETWORK (LSN) a division of Social Science Electronic Publishing, Inc. (SSEP) Copyright by SSEP, Inc. 2011 -- All rights reserved. tomorrow's

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NSF Law & Social Sciences Program: New Funding Solicitation and Dear Colleague Letter

The Law & Social Sciences (LSS) Program at the National Science Foundation (NSF) is pleased to announce the release of a new funding solicitation (here) and an associated Dear Colleague Letter (here).

ABOUT THE LSS PROGRAM: The LSS program supports social scientific studies of law and law-like systems of rules. Successful proposals describe research that advances scientific theory and understanding of the connections between law or legal processes and human behavior. The program funds the best proposals submitted within the field broadly defined, regardless of specific subfield, and strives to support an interdisciplinary community of scholars studying relevant topics. Fields of study include many disciplines (including anthropology, communication, criminology, economics, legal scholarship, political science, public policy, psychology, and sociology), and often address significant problems including though not limited to: Crime, Violence and Punishment; Economic Issues; Governance; Legal Decision Making; Legal Mobilization and Conceptions of Justice; and Litigation and the Legal Profession.

The LSS program offers several modes of funding, including support for graduate students, post-doctoral fellows, and research faculty in both the social science and law school academies. The program is particularly interested in enhancing its support of JD/PhD scholars in the law school academy, as outlined in the Dear Colleague Letter referenced above and detailed on the LSS program website.

SUBMISSIONS/FURTHER INFORMATION: Questions regarding the LSS program or proposal submissions may be directed to the program officers, Dr. Christian Meissner (at: cmeissne@nsf.gov) or Dr. Susan Sterett (at: ssterett@nsf.gov).

CELS: Looking Backward and Forward

Northwestern University Law School and the CELS 2011 co-organizers, Bernie Black, Shari Diamond, and Emerson Tiller, hosted and executed a truly outstanding conference last weekend in Chicago.

Going forward, CELS 2012 (No.7), is scheduled for Fri.-Sat., November 9-10, 2012, at Stanford Law School. CELS co-organizers, Dan Ho and John Donohue will lead the effort.

For those interested in nascent history, the annual Conferences on Empirical Legal Studies (CELS) were launched in 2006, in response to the growing level of empirical scholarship in law schools and elsewhere. It has thus far been held at University of Texas (2006), NYU (2007), Cornell (2008), USC (2009), Yale (2010), and Northwestern (2011), and is scheduled for Stanford (2012), Penn (2013), and UC Berkeley (2014), in each case with generous support from the host school.

UPDATE: Per custom, Dave Hoffman (Temple) weighs in with his observations of CELS 2011 (here).

The Journal of Law and Courts

As Chair of the Law and Courts section of the American Political Science Association, I am delighted to announce the inauguration of the Journal of Law and Courts, the official journal of the section.

The Journal is edited by David Klein, of the University of Virginia's Department of Politics, and published by the University of Chicago Press. The JLC is a double-blind peer-reviewed, single-submission journal, indexed by Lexis-Nexis, Westlaw, EBSCO, JSTOR, and others. While formally an APSA section journal, the JLC aims to be the premier outlet for the publication of work on law, courts, and things judicial from a wide range of perspectives.  More information about the journal and instructions for authors can be found here.

Submissions are being accepted now, via the journal's Editorial Manager page. We anticipate publication of the inaugural issue in spring 2013.

UPDATED: 1st Annual Western Empirical Legal Studies Conference -- Call for Papers

UPDATED:  The application period for the Western Empirical Legal Studies Conference has been extended. The new deadline is November 18.

The Call for Papers is here ; information and applications are here.

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Joe Doherty (UCLA) passed along information about a development that will certainly interest ELS folks. Joe also made a point to note that the one-day conference, described below, is designed in large part to "give law and graduate students a place to present their ELS research." The announcement and contact information follow.

"The UCLA School of Law Empirical Legal Scholars Association (ELSA) is proud to announce the First Annual Western Empirical Legal Studies Conference February 18, 2012. The WELS Conference is open to law and graduate students (political science, sociology, economics, etc.), and provides them with a forum to present their empirical legal research. The [extended] deadline for submission is November 18, 2011."

Further information and a submission form are available at the UCLA-ELSA website.

More CSLS Goodness: The 2012-13 Visiting Scholars Program

Once again, the Center for the Study of Law and Society (CSLS) at Berkeley Law is inviting applications for visiting scholars for the 2012-13 academic year.  Details about the Visiting Scholars program and the application process can be found here; the application deadline is November 14, 2011. 

The Center is, to my thinking, the single best spot for the empirical study of law and legal phenomena, and I can think of no better place to spend a year as a visiting scholar.

50 Years of CSLS!

The Center for the Study of Law and Society at UC-Berkeley is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year.  The great folks at the Center have been promoting, supporting, and conducting first-rate empirical work since before many of us were born, and the Center played a key role in (inter alia) the development of the law and society movement, the mainstreaming of empirical work in the legal academy, and the recruitment and training of generations of empirically-oriented legal scholars.

In celebration of this momentus anniversary, the Center is hosting a 50th Anniversary conference on "The Future of Law and Society."  The conference will be held November 3-4, 2011 in the Great Hall of the Bancroft Hotel in Berkeley, and boasts a lineup that is a "who's who" of contemporary law and society scholars. 

The conference is free, but attendees are asked to register at the conference link above. Please join the Center affiliates and the entire ELS community at what is sure to be a stimulating and enjoyable conference.

A String of Hires at USC Law

Although the ELS Blog typically refrains from noting individual personnel moves, a recent string of hires by Dean Bob Rasmussen at USC Law warrants note insofar as it involves leading ELS scholars. USC just announced hiring Lee Epstein and Nancy Staudt away from Northwestern (here and here, respectively). Epstein's hire is especially interesting as it complements USC Law's earlier hire of Mathew McCubbins, a leading positive political theorist. As Brian Leiter notes, these hires substantially bolster USC's presence in the law and politics field.

Summer Workshops

For those still looking for something worthwhile to do this summer I recommend the following (click on links for detailed information):

Workshops on Research Design for Causal Inference

Northwestern University will be hosting two workshops this summer on Research Design for Causal Inference, sponsored by Northwestern University, University of Southern California, the Society for Empirical Legal Studies, and The Searle Center on Law, Regulation, and Economic Growth at Northwestern Law.

Causal Inference: Bayesian Methods Workshop
July 11-13, 2011

Causal Inference: Frequentist Methods Workshop
August 15-19, 2011

Online Symposium Over at Concurring Opinions Blog

Today is the first day of a planned two-day online symposium over at Concurring Opinions on the recent paper, What Difference Representation. Kudos to Dave Hoffman (Temple) for organizing the event (Dave's description of the symposium is here) that has already generated substantial commentary.