Guide to Empirical Legal Studies

Empirical legal studies uses social science tools to examine law and legal institutions. These tools can include:

• surveys, e.g.:
• Attorney Satisfaction with the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure: Report to the Judicial Conference Advisory Committee on Civil Rules (Federal Judicial Center March 2010)
• Legal Needs and Civil Justice: A Survey of Americans: Major Findings from the Comprehensive Legal Needs Study (ABA 1994)
• Mary R. Rose, Christopher G. Ellison & Shari Seidman Diamond, Preferences for Juries Over Judges Across Racial and Ethnic Groups (2nd Annual Conference on Empirical Legal Studies, 2007), available at http://ssrn.com/abstract=998050.
• observation and analysis of legal events, e.g.:
• Mary R. Rose, Shari Seidman Diamond & Beth Murphy, Revisiting the Unanimity Requirement: The Behavior of the Non-Unanimous Civil Jury, Northwestern U. L. Rev. (forthcoming), available at http://ssrn.com/abstract=825125
• Rafael I. Pardo & Michelle R. Lacey, Undue Hardship in the Bankruptcy Courts: An Empirical Assessment of the Discharge of Educational Debt, 74 U. Cin. L. Rev. 405 (2005), available at http://ssrn.com/abstract=706761.
• Peter B. Oh, Veil-Piercing, 89 Texas L. Rev. 81 (2010) (dataset of 2,908 cases, 1658-2006), available at http://ssrn.com/abstract=1557972
• simulations, e.g.:
Valerie P. Hans et al., Science in the Jury Box: Jurors' Views and Understanding of Mitochondrial DNA Evidence, Cornell Legal Studies Research Paper No. 07-021, available at http://ssrn.com/abstract=998529 (mock trials)
• economic modeling, e.g.:
• John Armour et al., Shareholder Protection and Stock Market Development: An Empirical Test of the Legal Origins Hypothesis, University of Cambridge, CBR Working Paper ECGI - Law Working Paper No. 108/2008, available at http://ssrn.com/abstract=1094355

How can you learn about this diverse field? What are the leading works, what organizations work in the area, where are there standard datasets to use? A librarian at Fordham has prepared an excellent guide: Alissa Black-Dorward, Empirical Research (posted April 1, 2011). Tabs lead you to

• General Materials
• Statistical Software and Instruction
• Survey Research
• Banking
• Courts, Judges & Lawyers
• Crime and Criminal Justice
• Economics, Business & Finance
• Environment
• Evidence
• Foreign & International
• Health
• Intellectual Property
• Social Science Statistics
• State Statistics

Some of the information in the guide is tailored to Fordham, but you can find the equivalent here. For instance, our library has many of the books cited (although perhaps with different call numbers) and the UW has its own Human Subjects Division for ensuring ethical practices.

Update (May 22, 2011): see also this guide from Georgetown's law library.