Empirical Legal Studies

Milestones

At some point today our blog will receive visitor number 500,000.

Cyber Cesspool or Marketplace of Ideas: Research Opportunity

Brian Leiter posts the following:

A partner at a Chicago law firm has recently called to my attention that the on-line ABA Journal is increasingly playing host to "comments sections" on articles that are full of sexist and racist abuse, as well as just general unprofessional nastiness and creepiness.  The editors have been shockingly stubborn about cleaning up this mess.  The partner who called this to my attention reports that she and a number of colleagues are interested in supporting some empirical research into whether the abusive comments on the ABA Journal site are falling into certain (unsurprising) patterns, namely, disproportionately targetting women and minorities who are mentioned in stories.  It would also be useful to measure the frequency of abusive comments and their character.  If you have the pertinent expertise, and would be interested in looking into this, please e-mail me and I will put you in touch with the Chicago attorney interested in the project.  She reports that she and her colleagues will be able to provide financial support for research assistance needed for this project.

For Better or Worse (or Both): Emerging Data on Blogs & Legal Scholarship

Over at Law Librarian Blog, Joe Hodnicki provides an empirical perspective on the assimilation of blogs into legal scholarship (here). Issues concerning the influence of blogs on legal scholarship continue to prompt discussion. A recent sampling includes comments by Jack Balkin (Yale) and Brian Leiter (Texas).

New Blog-Voir Dire

Jeff Yates and Andrew Whitford (both of the University of Georgia) have started a new blog entitled Voir Dire, which should be of substantial interest to our readers as it has a law and social sciences focus.   Jeff and Andrew do great work, so I am anxious to read the blog as it  develops.  I have already bookmarked it.  Jeff described the mission of the blog in his first post:

Voir Dire - “to speak the truth.” VDB covers topics such as social science approaches to law and legal institutions, legal doctrine and legal policy implementation, and profession issues for academics. On occasion we dabble in the areas of pop culture, politics, and social issues, but for the most part we are not interested in becoming a pundit blog. VDB is designed as an online forum for the exchange of information on our core topics and research and teaching generally. Our aim is to advance discourse on these topics and highlight research and academic news that we find interesting.

UPDATE: I forgot to post a link in my initial post.  The blog can be viewed here.

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.

How Can Lawyers Find Useable Empirical Info?

Our readers might be interested in a post from Deliberations, a blog devoted to juries and jury selection.  The post is entitled "Which Way to Research?", and discusses the how hard it is for lawyers to find empirical information in a form they can understand and use.

Nw. U. L. Rev. Colloquy & Survey Methodology

Northwestern University Law Review's on-line blog, Colloquy, features a debate this week about empirical support for the belief that white Americans hold negative stereotypes associated with viewing Asian Americans as a "model minority." According to Colloquy's editors:

"Robert Chang and Rose Cuison Villazor respond to McGowan and Lindgren's prior piece, Testing the "Model Minority Myth," which argued that empirical data do not support the belief that white Americans hold negative stereotypes associated with viewing Asian Americans as a 'model minority.' Chang and Villazor argue that McGowan and Lindgren's argument is flawed because it relies heavily on data produced by asking white respondents questions about their racial attitudes in face-to-face interviews.  Chang and Villazor assert that this methodology is unlikely to yield true data about racial attitudes, as it is infected with problems of response falsification, is unable to ferret out subtler forms of racial bias, and is limited by the 'perpetrator perspective' on racial discrimination."

ELS on WSJ

The ELS Blog and my fellow ELS Blogger Bill Henderson has been cited (with a photo) on Wall Street Journal Online Law Blog.  Check it out!

ICPSR

PrawfsBlawg has posted An ICPSR Survival Guide for the Law Professor.

Law Blogs & the "Juice"

Not at all quite sure what to make of it, but Paul Caron touts a law blog "juice rating" here.  I note it only because our ELS blog made the list (at 26th).  Our ranking (such as it is) is all the more notable in that we're a relatively new blog, dwell on the substantive (save for this post), and focus on the discrete--though palpably growing--empirical legal studies field.