Empirical Legal Research by
Empirical Legal Research describes how to investigate the roles of legislation, regulation, legal policies and other legal arrangements at play in society. It is invaluable as a guide to legal scholars, practitioners and students on how to do empirical legal research, covering history, methods, evidence, growth of knowledge and links with normativity. This multidisciplinary approach combines insights and approaches from different social sciences, evaluation studies, Big Data analytics and empirically informed ethics. The authors present an overview of the roots of this blossoming interdisciplinary domain, going back to legal realism, the fields of law, economics and the social sciences, and also to civilology and evaluation studies. The book addresses not only data analysis and statistics, but also how to formulate adequate research problems, to use (and test) different types of theories (explanatory and intervention theories) and to apply new forms of literature research to the field of law such as the systematic, rapid and realist reviews and synthesis studies. The choice and architecture of research designs, the collection of data, including Big Data, and how to analyze and visualize data are also covered. The book discusses the tensions between the normative character of law and legal issues and the descriptive and causal character of empirical legal research, and suggests ways to help handle this seeming disconnect. This comprehensive guide is vital reading for law practitioners as well as for students and researchers dealing with regulation, legislation and other legal arrangements.
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Statistics for Library and Information Services by
Statistics for Library and Information Services, written for non-statisticians, provides logical, user-friendly, and step-by-step instructions to make statistics more accessible for students and professionals in the field of Information Science. It emphasizes concepts of statistical theory and data collection methodologies, but also extends to the topics of visualization creation and display, so that the reader will be able to better conduct statistical analysis and communicate his/her findings. The book is tailored for information science students and professionals. It has specific examples of dataset sets, scripts, design modules, data repositories, homework assignments, and a glossary lexicon that matches the field of Information Science. The textbook provides a visual road map that is customized specifically for Information Science instructors, students, and professionals regarding statistics and visualization. Each chapter in the book includes full-color illustrations on how to use R for the statistical model that particular chapter will cover. This book is arranged in 17 chapters, which are organized into five main sections: .the first section introduces research design and data collection; .the second section discusses basic statistical concepts, including descriptive, bivariate, time series, and regression analyses; .section 3 covers the subject of visualization creation using Open Source R; .section 4 covers decision making from the analysis; and .the last section provides examples and references. Every chapter illustrates how to use Open Source R and features two subsections for the major ideas of the chapter: its statistical model and its visual representation. The statistical model captures the main statistical formulas/theories covered in each chapter, while the visual representation addresses the subject of the types of visualization that are produced from the statistical analysis model covered in that particular chapter. Don t miss the book s companion Web site at www.statisticsforlis.org"
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An Introduction to Empirical Legal Research by
Is the death penalty a more effective deterrent than lengthy prison sentences? Does a judge's gender influence their decisions? Do independent judiciaries promote economic freedom? Answering such questions requires empirical evidence, and arguments based on empirical research have become aneveryday part of legal practice, scholarship, and teaching. In litigation judges are confronted with empirical evidence in cases ranging from bankruptcy and taxation to criminal law and environmental infringement. In academia researchers are increasingly turning to sophisticated empirical methods toassess and challenge fundamental assumptions about the law.As empirical methods impact on traditional legal scholarship and practice, new forms of education are needed for today's lawyers. All lawyers asked to present or assess empirical arguments need to understand the fundamental principles of social science methodology that underpin sound empiricalresearch. An Introduction to Empirical Legal Research introduces that methodology in a legal context, explaining how empirical analysis can inform legal arguments; how lawyers can set about framing empirical questions, conducting empirical research, analysing data, and presenting or evaluating theresults. The fundamentals of understanding quantitative and qualitative data, statistical models, and the structure of empirical arguments are explained in a way accessible to lawyers with or without formal training in statistics.Written by two of the world's leading experts in empirical legal analysis, drawing on years of experience in training lawyers in empirical methods, An Introduction to Empirical Legal Research will be an invaluable primer for all students, academics, or practising lawyers coming to empirical research- whether they are embarking themselves on an empirical research project, or engaging with empirical arguments in their field of study, research, or practice.
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Methodologies of Legal Research by
Until quite recently, questions about methodology in legal research have been largely confined to understanding the role of doctrinal research as a scholarly discipline. In turn, this has involved asking questions not only about coverage but, fundamentally, questions about the identity of the discipline. Is it (mainly) descriptive, hermeneutical, or normative? Should it also be explanatory? Legal scholarship has been torn between, on the one hand, grasping the expanding reality of law and its context, and, on the other, reducing this complex whole to manageable proportions. The purely internal analysis of a legal system, isolated from any societal context, remains an option, and is still seen in the approach of the French academy, but as law aims at ordering society and influencing human behavior, this approach is felt by many scholars to be insufficient. Consequently, many attempts have been made to conceive legal research differently. Social scientific and comparative approaches have proven fruitful. However, does the introduction of other approaches leave merely a residue of 'legal doctrine,' to which pockets of social sciences can be added, or should legal doctrine be merged with the social sciences? What would such a broad interdisciplinary field look like and what would its methods be? This book answers these questions, focusing on the growing need to concentrate on the various methods of legal research. It will be extremely useful to Ph.D students, as well as other legal scholars.
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The Oxford Handbook of Empirical Legal Research by
The Oxford Handbook of Empirical Legal Research provides a comprehensive guide to one of the most central developments in modern legal scholarship. 43 chapters trace the development of the field, its methodology, and its contribution to understanding every aspect of the modern legal world - from policing to finance, employment to the environment.
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Research Handbook on the Economics of Corporate Law by
Comprising essays specially commissioned for the volume, leading scholars who have shaped the field of corporate law and governance explore and critique developments in this vibrant and expanding area and offer possible directions for future research. This important addition to the Research Handbooks in Law and Economics series provides insights into subjects such as the role of directors, shareholders, creditors and employees; empirical studies of litigation and shareholder activism; executive compensation; corporate gatekeepers; comparative law; and behavioral approaches to law and finance. Topics are organized within five sections: corporate constituencies, insider governance, gatekeepers, jurisdiction, and new theory. Taken as a whole, the volume serves as an introduction for those new to the field and as a reference for those unfamiliar with some of the topics discussed. Authoritative and accessible, the Research Handbook on the Economics of Corporate Law will be a valuable resource for students, scholars, and practitioners of corporate law and economics.
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Introduction to Online Legal, Regulatory and Intellectual Property Research by
Introduction to Online Legal, Regulatory & Intellectual Property Research provides practical, step-by-step guidelines for researching legal issues.
Ch. 1: Making legal information your business
Ch. 2: virtual chase : a case study on trademark due diligence
Ch. 3: Legal, regulatory, and intellectual property research problems and solutions
Ch. 4: Legal, regulatory, and intellectual property research data source evaluations and reviews
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American Legal Realism and Empirical Social Science by
When the Romans invade, the Britons call on Asterix, Obelix and the Magic Potion for help. Their mission, though, seems doomed to failure when their barrel of magic potion is confiscated, until Asterix remembers he has some strange leaves in his pocket - leaves which will surely change the world!
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Empirical Methods in Law by
Today's legal profession demands that lawyers understand and engage in dialogue about basic empirical research techniques. Empirical Methods in Law teaches law students to recognize when empirical research needs to be applied in legal practice. It provides the vocabulary with which to communicate with scientific experts, and an awareness of the type of questions to ask about empirical findings. Hailing from diverse backgrounds, authors Lawless, Robbennolt, and Ulen bring practical experience and insight to this accessible research methods text that features: - A consistent focus on basic principles and concepts, explained in an intuitive style requiring no prerequisite knowledge of math or statistics; - Clear explanations geared to students new to empirical techniques; - Optional problem sets and footnotes that will challenge more experienced students who are eager to explore specific topics in depth; - Generous use of examples that show how empirical techniques are applied in a range of substantive areas; - Coverage of different stages of empirical research, from formulating research questions and testable hypotheses, to data collection, sampling, coding, statistical analysis, and presenting data; - Discussion of the connections among the different stages of empirical research; - Sidebars with in-depth views of particular topics that provide flexible options for teaching; - Learning-by-doing exercises at the end of each chapter. Combining expertise and an exceptionally student-friendly approach, Empirical Methods in Law is suited for a stand-alone course on empirical methods in law or as a supplement for a course or seminar that includes an empirical component.
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Basic Concepts of Probability and Statistics in the Law by
When as a practicing lawyer I published my ?rst article on statistical evidence in 1966, the editors of the Harvard Law Review told me that a mathematical equa- 1 tion had never before appeared in the review. This hardly seems possible - but if they meant a serious mathematical equation, perhaps they were right. Today all that has changed in legal academia. Whole journals are devoted to scienti?c methods in law or empirical studies of legal institutions. Much of this work involves statistics. Columbia Law School, where I teach, has a professor of law and epidemiology and other law schools have similar "law and" professorships. Many offer courses on statistics (I teach one) or, more broadly, on law and social science. The same is true of practice. Where there are data to parse in a litigation, stat- ticians and other experts using statistical tools now frequently testify. And judges must understand them. In 1993, in its landmark Daubert decision, the Supreme Court commanded federal judges to penetrate scienti?c evidence and ?nd it "re- 2 liable" before allowing it in evidence. It is emblematic of the rise of statistics in the law that the evidence at issue in that much-cited case included a series of epidemiological studies. The Supreme Court's new requirement made the Federal Judicial Center's Reference Manual on Scienti?c Evidence, which appeared at about the same time, a best seller. It has several important chapters on statistics.
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Analytical Methods for Lawyers by
This law school casebook was developed by a team of professors at Harvard Law School to introduce students with little or no quantitative background to the basic analytical techniques that attorneys need to master to represent their clients effectively. This casebook presents clear explanations of decision analysis, games and information, contracting, accounting, finance, microeconomics, economic analysis of the law, fundamentals of statistics, and multiple regression analysis.
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Statistics in the Law by
The book will serve primarily as a user's manual or desk reference for the expert witness-lawyer team and secondarily as a textbook or supplemental textbook for upper level undergraduate statistics students. It starts with two articles by masters of the trade, Paul Meier and Franklin Fisher.It then explains the distinction between the Frye and Daughbert standards for expert testimony, and how these standards play out in court. The bulk of the book is concerned with individual cases ranging over a wide variety of topics, such as electronic draw poker (does it require skill to play),employment discrimination (how to tell whether an employer discriminated against older workers in deciding whom to fire), driving while black (did the New Jersey State Police disproportionately stop blacks), jury representativeness (is a jury a representative cross section of the community), jurieshearing death penalty cases (are such juries biased toward a guilty verdict, and does the Supreme Court care), the civil incarceration of violent sexual offenders after having served their jail sentences (can future dangerousness be predicted), do data from multiple choice examinations support anallegation of copying, whether rental agents in an apartment complex steered African-American prospects to one part of the complex, how much tax is owed after an audit that used a random sample, whether an inventor falsified his notebook in an effort to fool the Patent Office, and whether ballotshad been tampered with in an election. The book concludes with two recent English cases, one in which a woman was accused of murdering her infant sons because both died of \cot death" or \sudden death syndrome," (she was convicted, but later exonerated), and how Bayesian analyses can (or moreprecisely), cannot be presented in UK courts. In each study, the statistical analysis is shaped to address the relevant legal questions, and draws on whatever methods in statistics might shed light on those questions.
Statistics for Lawyers by
Designed to introduce law students, law teachers, practitioners, and judges to the basic ideas of mathematical probability and statistics as they have been applied in the law, the book consists of sections of exposition followed by real-world cases and case studies in which stastical data have played a role. Readers are asked to apply the theory to the facts, to calculate results (a pocket calculator is sufficient), and to explore legal issues raised by quantitative findings, while the author's own calculations and comments are given in the back of the book. The cases and case studies reflect a broad variety of legal subjects, including antidiscrimination, mass torts, taxation, school finance, identification evidence, preventive detention, handwriting disputes, voting, environmental protection, antitrust, and the death penalty. The first edition has been used in law, statistics, and social science courses, and in 1991 was selected by the University of Michigan Law Review as one of the important law books of the year. This second edition includes many new problems reflecting current developments in the law, including a new chapter on epidemiology.
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Using Digital Analytics for Smart Assessment by This link opens in a new window
Journal of Empirical Legal Studies
Journal of Law & Economics
Journal of Legal Studies
Law & Social Inquiry
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