Empirical Legal Studies

15th Annual Conference on Empirical Legal Studies (CELS)

Given the many disruptions incident to the COVID-19 pandemic, I am nothing short of delighted to announce that the Fifteenth Annual Conference on Empirical Legal Studies (CELS), presented by the Society for Empirical Legal Studies (SELS) and hosted by the University of Toronto Faculty of Law (Canada), is now scheduled for Friday, March 18, and Saturday, March 19, 2022.

CELS brings together scholars from an array of fields, including law, economics, political science, psychology, statistics, sociology, history, and policy analysis. Papers are selected through a peer-review process and each is assigned an individual discussant. CELS invites empirical papers that span all areas of empirical legal studies. Authors are encouraged to submit works-in-progress; however, submissions should be completed paper drafts that include main results. Submitted papers must also be unpublished (and are expected to be unpublished at the time of the conference). The paper submission portal will open August 1, 2021. The deadline for submissions is October 17, 2021.

Of course, while the conference organizers plan on (and sincerely hope for) an in-person event, given the ongoing uncertainties participants are urged to delay purchasing any non-refundable airline tickets at this moment. Additional conference information is found here.

Theodore Eisenberg Memorial Article Prize -- Update

Each year, the Conference on Empirical Legal Studies (CELS) awards the Theodore Eisenberg Memorial Prize for the best poster presented at the Conference. Inasmuch as last year’s Conference was postponed due to the pandemic, this year the Journal of Empirical Legal Studies will award the Theodore Eisenberg Memorial Article Prize to the best paper submitted to JELS in 2021 and accepted for publication. The prize will be judged by the JELS editors. To honor our late colleague’s strong and enduring interest in mentoring and developing new empirical scholars, we will heavily favor submissions by early-career scholars in making this assessment. We will automatically consider any paper submitted between January 1, 2021, and December 31, 2021, as eligible for consideration. The award will be noted in the volume in which the article is published and an announcement sent to the Society for Empirical Legal Studies.