Empirical Scholarship for "Younger" (read: Untenured) Legal Scholars

An interesting thread developing over at the Conglomerate considers  Should Young Scholars Engage in Empirical Legal Research?  As others have already noted, many of our counterparts in the social sciences would likely turn the question on its side and ask:  Do law schools really grant tenure without some sort of empirical research on a candidate's CV?  (Of course, these same social scientists wonder about student-edited law reviews as well.)

Comments

[William Henderson]

Jason, nice rhetorical move in your Glom comment. You reframed the question--puttting those legal advocacy skills to work in the name of empiricism. Hey, we all go down with the ship if necessary. bh.

[Jason Czarnezki]

My comment to the Glom post is at:

http://www.theconglomerate.org/2006/07/should_young_sc.html#c19918835

I am also skeptical of the original post, but it seems the existing comments have expressed this skepticism quite well. I think it might be a more fruitful endeavor to discuss how junior scholars might reduce the roadblocks to empirical work, rather than giving them information on the potential costs. This blog has offered suggestions before:

http://www.elsblog.org/the_empirical_legal_studi/2006/05/new_empirical_l.html

[Christopher Zorn]

Guys --

No worries; worst-case, I can imagine there will be more than a few political science departments out there that might hire you, post-tenure denial...

;-)

[Bill Ford]

Bill,

It's even worse: At a AALS panel on blogs, there was also some suggestion that untenured people shouldn't be blogging. So, it's over.

-Bill

[William Henderson]

Michael's comment to the original Comglomerate thread offered some measured, careful advice on this issue (very Heise-ian). My response was more skeptical of the original post: http://www.theconglomerate.org/2006/07/should_young_sc.html#c19910949

Jason and Bill, we may have tied our fates to a highly speculative venture. Oh well, there is no turning back now.