Empirical Legal Studies - Books
The following books offer introductions to the field.
Analyzing Law's Reach: Empirical Research on Law and Society by Publication Date: 2008Collection of important articles from American Bar Association scholars trained in such diverse fields as law, sociology, psychology, political science, economics, history, and anthropology.
Empirical Legal Research: A Guidance Book for Lawyers, Legislators and Regulators by Publication Date: 2016Describes how to investigate the roles of legislation, regulation, legal policies and other legal arrangements at play in society.
Also available in print.
Empirical Legal Research in Action: Reflections on Methods and Their Applications by Publication Date: 2018Ebook. Also available in print
The chapters, written by an international cast of scholars, reflect on the methods that they have applied in their own empirical work, spanning a wide breadth of research from psychological experiments in personal injury to field studies in sociology and political science.
An Introduction to Empirical Legal Research by Publication Date: 2014Introduces empirical research methodology in a legal context, explaining how empirical analysis can inform legal arguments and how lawyers can set about framing empirical questions, conducting empirical research, analyzing data, and presenting or evaluating the results.
The Oxford Handbook of Empirical Legal Research by Call Number: (online)Publication Date: 2010Introduces empirical research on various topics (e.g., crime, financial markets) as well as methodological issues. Also available in print.
Sociology of Law: Visions of a Scholarly Tradition by Publication Date: 2008Drawing together both theoretical and empirical themes, in this book Mathieu Deflem reviews the field's major accomplishments and reveals the value of the multiple ways in which sociologists study the social structures and processes of law.
Also available in print.
The Oxford Handbook of Behavioral Economics and the Law by Call Number: (online)Publication Date: 2014Leading scholars of law, psychology, and economics provide an up-to-date and comprehensive analysis of the field of behavioral studies and the law, including its strengths and limitations as well as a forecast of its future development.
The Oxford Handbook of Law and Economics. Volume 1: Methodology and Concepts by Call Number: (online)Publication Date: 2017Covers over one-hundred topics in law and economics ranging from law and neuroeconomics to European Union law and economics to feminist theory and law and economics.
Empirical Legal Studies - Journals
Empirical legal studies articles can appear in general law reviews. They can also be found in journals for political science, sociology, or other disciplines.
The following are journals that concentrate on empirical legal studies. If you're curious, browsing recent issues of these journals will give you a good flavor of the field.
- Journal of Law and Courts (2013-)From the Law and Courts organized section of the American Political Science Association.
- Jurimetrics (1979-)Continues Jurimetrics Journal (1967-79)
SSRN
SSRN's Legal Scholarship Network includes Experimental & Empirical Studies eJournals. You can browse the combined collections, or choose a smaller collection:
Empirical Studies eJournal 8,803 Papers
Experimental & Empirical Studies eJournal, Archives of Vols. 1-13, 2000-12 5,332 Papers
LSN: Empirical Studies (Topic) 4,004 Papers
LSN: Experimental Studies (Topic) 842 Papers
Experimental Studies eJournal 1,663 Papers
(The numbers indicate the numbers of papers as of the date they were copied and pasted to the guide: March 29, 2024.)
Within any collection you are browsing, you can sort by date or by most downloaded—a good way to find influential papers. You can also search within a collection—e.g., by searching for empirical papers that use the word "transgender."
For more on SSRN, see our guide:
- SSRN [Gallagher Law Library]The Social Science Research Network (SSRN) is an open-access repository where authors can post papers and researchers can find and download them.
Articles About Empirical Legal Research
Tracey E. George, An Empirical Study of Empirical Legal Scholarship: The Top Law Schools, 81 Ind. L.J. 141 (2006), [HeinOnline]
Gregory Mitchell, Empirical Legal Scholarship as Scientific Dialogue, 83 N.C. L. Rev. 167 (2004), [HeinOnline]