Empirical Legal Studies

Another 'Danish Urban Myth' Crushed By Medical Research

The British Medical Journal's ("BMJ") annual Holiday issue typically includes some "eccentric" research. The latest includes a paper debunking the "Danish urban myth that it is possible to get drunk by submerging feet in alcohol." Thus, according to the paper's authors, "Driving or leading a vessel with boots filled of vodka seems to be safe." (p.2)

JEDI

Posting Andrew's call regarding his course on empirical legal scholarship made me wonder whether our readers are aware of his Judicial Elections Data Initiative?  If not, take a look.  This is GOOD stuff.

http://jedi.wustl.edu/

Conducting Empirical Legal Scholarship: The Advanced Course

Conducting Empirical Legal Scholarship: The Advanced Course, Feb 4-6, 2011

On Friday, February 4, 2011 through Sunday, February 6, 2011, Lee
Epstein and Andrew Martin will be teaching a workshop called "Conducting
Empirical Legal Scholarship: The Advanced Course."  This workshop will be
held in Chicago, and is co-sponsored by Northwestern University and
Washington University. The workshop is now open for registration at:

http://www.law.northwestern.edu/faculty/conferences/empiricalworkshop.html

The workshop is designed for those who have some experience with
empirical legal research, and an understanding of elementary statistics
(at the level taught in the introductory workshop). Topics to be covered
will include: multiple regression, regression models for limited
dependent variables, presenting results from non-linear models, data
visualization and graphics, and matching methods for causal inference.

Please visit the website for all logistical details.  Feel free to
contact Andrew Martin ([email protected]) with substantive questions.

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.)

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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.

The "Cost" of Legal Representation

In What Difference Representation?, James Greiner (Harvard) and Cassandra Wolos Pattanayak (Harv. Stats.--grad student) set out to assess "[P]articularly with respect to low-income clients in civil cases, how much of a difference does legal representation make?" What they find, as the authors note, will likely startle many. The paper's careful attention to a clever research design warrants note as well. Specifically, "the basic idea was to look for practice areas in which demand for legal services outstripped a provider’s capacity, and in those areas, to suggest that the provider allow us to randomize which of several eligible potential clients would receive an offer of representation. The randomization would create “treated” (offered representation from this service provider) and “control” (no such offer) groups identical (up to random variation) in all ways except for the offer of representation." The excerpted abstract, below, includes a summary of the paper's key findings.

"We report the results of the first in a series of randomized control trials designed to measure the effect of an offer of, and the actual use of, legal representation. The results are startling. In the context of administrative litigation to determine eligibility for unemployment benefits, a service provider’s offer of representation to a claimant had no statistically significant effect on the claimant’s probability of a victory, but the offer caused a delay in the proceeding. Because a substantial percentage of the provider’s client base consisted of claimants who were initially denied benefits but who would have that initial denial reversed as a result of the litigation, the delay an offer of representation caused inflicted a harm upon such claimants in the form of an additional waiting time for benefits to begin, this with no concomitant increase in the probability of a favorable outcome. In other words, these claimants would have been better off without the offer of representation."

ELS & Student Law Reviews

Although ELS scholars increasingly look to peer-review journals, traditional student-edited law reviews remain an important outlet for empirical legal scholarship. In Empirical Legal Scholarship in Law Reviews, Shari Seidman Diamond (Northwestern) and Pam Mueller (ABF) study law review publishing trends and predict more empirical legal work for the traditional law reviews. The abstract follows:

"Despite persistent calls for more empirical legal scholarship, only recently have scholars provided evidence that empirical legal scholarship has indeed entered the mainstream of the legal academy. Defining empirical scholarship as the systematic organization of a series of observations with the method of data collection and analysis made available to the audience, we analyzed the content of 60 law review volumes published in the years 1998 and 2008. Our content analysis revealed that by 2008 nearly half of law review articles included some empirical content. Production of original research is less common. The highest-ranked law reviews published more articles and included more complex research designs. Analyzing the benefits and costs of publishing in law reviews, we predict that law reviews will see more original empirical scholarship in the future, despite the increased availability of peer-reviewed publication outlets."