Empirical Legal Studies: Research Design

Empirical legal studies have become trendy in the U.S. and are now spreading to law faculties in other countries as well. The popular image of an empirical study is that it involves sophisticated statistical analysis of quantitative data. Often the author of the study starts with a handy dataset and then tries to figure out what question he or she can answer using those data. Useful empirical studies of law and other topics don't start this way. Instead the researcher has a question, derived from theoretical literature or policy debate (or both) and faces the challenge of deciding what types of empirical data, collected and analyzed in what fashion, will best answer that question. The possibilities range from "big data" analyses of hundreds or thousands of documents, tweets or something similar to lengthy, intensive interviews with a few well-placed officials or informants, with just about any other way one might collect factual data -- e.g. online surveys, courtroom observations -- in between. What all of these approaches have in common is not that they involve numeric data but that they attempt to arrive at as objective a view of social, economic, or political reality as is possible. Learning how to design and conduct a survey or how to estimate a regression model or apply AI to vast numbers of texts is (relatively speaking) easy. There are lots of courses at Stanford that you can take on these methods. Learning what approaches are most appropriate to answer the research questions you are interested in is much harder. This seminar is directed at helping you think through the design of an empirical research project -- whether quantitative, qualitative or both -- from identifying researchable questions to collecting and analyzing data to presenting your results to academic or policy audiences. You will start with a broad question (or several questions) of interest to you, based on your previous experience, other studies or reading. By the end of the seminar you will have identified questions you can investigate empirically (perhaps in addition to theoretically) and figured out what research approach(es) will work best for you. The product of the seminar will be a preliminary research proposal, whether for your master's thesis this year or some other purpose in the future. Although plans for the fall quarter are still somewhat in flux, I expect to teach this seminar online with the assistance of the SPILS teaching fellow. I hope it will be possible to meet in person at the beginning of the quarter for a few introductory sessions to begin to get to know each other. In any event, I will be available throughout the quarter for one-on-one zoom sessions to discuss your research. Special Instructions: JD students can take the class with consent of the instructor. After the term begins, JD students accepted into the course can transfer from section (01) into section (02), which can potentially satisfy the R requirement, with consent of the instructor. Consent Application for JD students: To apply for this course, JD students must e-mail the instructors for permission to enroll. This course is REQUIRED for all SPILS fellows and BY CONSENT for all other students. Interested students should email the instructors for consent to enroll. Elements used in grading: Class participation, attendance, written assignments and final paper.