Empirical Legal Studies

Law & Social Inquiry -- Graduate (and Law) Student Paper Competition

The good folks at Law & Inquiry asked if we would publicize its 2014 Graduate Student Paper Competition; we are delighted to do so. Further information for those interested can be found here (and here). Please note that the submission deadline is March 1, 2014. A brief description of the competition follows.

"Each year, Law & Social Inquiry invites submissions from graduate and law students for its Graduate Student Paper Competition.  The GSPC offers students within the field of sociolegal studies a great opportunity to showcase their journal-length work to an expanded audience. The winning paper is published in Law & Social Inquiry, and the winner receives special recognition from LSI at the Annual Meeting of the Law and Society Association. Winners are also honored with a $500 cash prize for their achievement."

Testing Whether Judges Follow The Law

In Do Judges Follow the Law? An Empirical Test of Congressional Control Over Judicial Behavior, Todd Henderson and William Hubbard (Chicago) set out to empirically test the naive model of judging which predicts that judges will follow unambiguous laws. To do so, the paper levers the Securities Exchange Act 21D, which requires courts to certify that attorneys complied with Rule 11(b)'s prohibition against frivolous claims.

To test the model, the authors eschew the standard data source -- Westlaw or LEXIS -- noting the “denominator problem” that arises as these online databases typically do not capture all district court opinions, orders, and judgments. Instead, the paper benefits from an author-constructed "dataset of PACER docket records of all private securities lawsuits filed in federal court from 1994 to 2008."

Results from their analyses reject the naïve model: "courts make the required findings in less than 14 percent of cases in which such findings were required by law. This suggests judges either do not know of the law or, if they do, fail to follow it. We also show that required Rule 11(b) findings about sanctions are made overwhelmingly in cases where sanctions would be least likely – that is, in orders approving settlements – and such findings are extremely rare in cases where sanctions would other be more likely – that is, where motions to dismiss are granted. To explain this seeming paradox, we offer an account that highlights crucial ways in which the incentives of the judge and of the attorneys may interact in complex cases."

Helpful Advice to Law/Grad Students Writing ELS Papers

A few years ago Andrew Gelman (Columbia--Statistics/Poli Sci) wrote a brief memo filled with general advice on how to write an empirical research paper. While the memo was originally designed for "young" researchers (incident to an American Statistical Association program), it includes reminders germane to even seasoned (or "no longer young") researchers. While those interested in the full memo can click here and here, a few of the (excerpted) highlights follow.

"1. Start with the conclusions. Write a couple pages on what you’ve found and what you recommend. In writing these conclusions, you should also be writing some of the introduction, in that you’ll need to give enough background so that general readers can understand what you’re talking about and why they should care. But you want to start with the conclusions, because that will determine what sort of background information you’ll need to give.

2. Now step back. What is the principal evidence for your conclusions? Make some graphs and pull out some key numbers that represent your research findings which back up your claims.

3. Back one more step, now. What are the methods and data you used to obtain your research findings.

4. Now go back and write the literature review and the introduction.

5. Moving forward one last time: go to your results and conclusions and give alternative explanations. Why might you be wrong? What are the limits of applicability of your findings? What future research would be appropriate to follow up on these loose ends?

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(a) Don’t write something unless you expect people to read it.

(b) This principle holds for tables and figures as well.

... You have to draw the trail from the scientific question, to the statistical question, to the data, to the inferences, back to the statistical and scientific questions."

Normative Dimensions of ELS

A recent paper by Josh Fischman (Northwestern) in the Penn L Rev, Reuniting Is and Ought in Empirical Legal Scholarship, urges ELS scholars to broaden their focus to include the normative dimensions of empirical work. Specifically, Fischman calls for increased attention to explaining how "positive findings relate to normative claims." An excerpted abstract follows.

"Scholars engaged in empirical legal research have long struggled to balance the methodological demands of social science with the normative aspirations of legal scholarship. In recent years, empirical legal scholarship has increased dramatically in methodological sophistication, but in the process has lost some of its relevance to the normative goals that animate legal scholarship....

Using as examples three types of measures commonly used to evaluate judges and institutions—citation counts, reversal rates, and inter-judge disparities—this Article describes widespread flaws in efforts to connect the ‘is’ and the ‘ought’ in empirical legal scholarship. The Article argues that normative implications should not be an afterthought in empirical research, but rather should inform research design. Empirical scholars should focus on quantities that can guide policy, and not merely on phenomena that are conveniently measured. They should be explicit about how they propose to measure the goodness of outcomes, disclose what assumptions are necessary to justify their proposed metrics, and explain how these metrics relate to the observable data. When values are difficult to quantify, legal empiricists will need to develop theoretical frameworks and empirical methods that can credibly connect empirical findings to policy-relevant conclusions."

3rd Annual Western Empirical Legal Studies (WELS) Conference -- Call For Papers

I am delighted once again to pass along information from Joe Doherty (UCLA) about the 3rd Annual Western Empirical Legal Studies (WELS) Conference at UCLA. Insofar as WELS is consciously pitched to "law and graduate students," it fills an important need and presents a wonderful opportunity for interested students. (Please note the 2.1.2014 proposal deadline.)

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Call for Papers: 3rd Annual Western Empirical Legal Studies (WELS) Conference at UCLA School of Law

Proposal Deadline: February 1, 2014.

The UCLA School of Law's Empirical Legal Scholars Association (ELSA) is proud to announce the 3rd Annual Western Empirical Legal Studies Conference, on March 8, 2014, at the UCLA School of Law.

WELS is a conference for law and graduate students that provides a unique opportunity for emerging ELS scholars to present their work in front of an audience of peers. The first two conferences attracted participants from a dozen campuses across the U.S. and Europe. WELS provides a unique forum for junior scholars to present their original research, and receive focused feedback from students and law faculty engaged in similar projects.

Click here for more information and to submit a proposal (paper title and abstract).

Quantifying Legal Scholarship's "Social Value"

Eric Posner's (Chicago) new blog discusses a quick empirical study that was bound to quickly garner attention (certainly here). For the purpose of his study, Eric understands social value exclusively in terms of the S&P 500 Index. He then examined whether notable works by leading legal scholars (e.g., Dworkin and Scalia) influenced the Index. The findings, according to Eric, are "discouraging."

Baldy Center Fellowships, 2014-15

The Baldy Center for Law & Social Policy, based at the SUNY-Buffalo Law School, welcomes applications for several fellowships for 2014-15 from scholars seeking to pursure reserach on important topics in law, legal institutions, and social policy. Applications are invited from junior and senior scholars from law, the humanities, and the social sciences. The fellowship program includes Post-Doctoral, Mid-Career, and Senior Fellowships. A brief description follows; click here for application information.

"Fellows are expected to participate regularly in Baldy Center events, but otherwise have no obligations beyond vigorously pursuing their research. Fellows receive standard university research privileges (access to university libraries, high-speed Internet, office space, computer equipment, phone, website space, working paper series, etc.) and are encouraged to develop collaborative research projects with SUNY Buffalo faculty members where appropriate. Those who wish to teach a course to aid their research or gain teaching experience can be accommodated on a case-by-case basis."