Empirical Legal Studies I

Legal practice and research increasingly involve analysis of big data to resolve legal questions, and the importance of quantitative analysis is likely to continue growing in the coming years. Many legal employers may value lawyers who have at least basic familiarity with empirical research methods. This course will introduce students to empirical methods and ask them to design an empirical legal study that contributes to an area of law. (Those who take the spring course Empirical Legal Studies II will implement the design and carry out the study as part of that course.) Among other things, students will learn to: (1) conduct a statistical analysis to produce descriptive and summary statistics on an empirical legal topic; (2) calculate correlation statistics in statistical analysis software, using different modeling techniques; (3) develop and execute an empirical strategy to make causal inferences about an empirical legal topic; (4) evaluate the quality of empirical legal research; and (5) identify an interesting empirical legal research question, research the relevant scholarship, and draft a plausible research design to explore that question. No experience with statistics or quantitative analysis is required or expected.