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Statistics & Empirical Legal Studies Research Guide

INTRODUCTION

Empirical Legal Studies uses data analysis to study the legal system. Empirical Legal Studies is comprised of the body of scholarly research in this field, the methods employed to conduct this research, and the application of this research. This guide will serve as a reference for all three iterations of Empirical Legal Studies: form, process, and function.

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS IN THE DISCIPLINE OF EMPIRICAL LEGAL STUDIES:

Here are a few suggestions for resources that publish empirical legal research or offer an introduction to Empirical Legal Studies.

BOOKS AND JOURNALS

John Henry Schlegel, American Legal Realism and Empirical Social Science (1995) [KF380 .S35 1995]

William M. Evan, Social Structure and Law: Theoretical and Empirical Perspectives (1990) [K376 .E87 1990]

John Baldwin & Gwynn Davis, Empirical Research in Law, chapter in The Oxford Handbook of Legal Studies 880 (Peter Cane & Mark Tushnet eds., 2003) [K230 .O94 2003]

Journal of Empirical Legal Studies [K10 .O3238; also available electronically] peer-reviewed journal; publishes empirical articles in a variety of fields, including criminal justice, public policy, corporate law, and economics.

Law & Society Review [K12 .A914; also available electronically] leading peer-reviewed publication, featuring work that bears on the relationship between society and the legal process, including cultural, economic, political, psychological, and social aspects of law and legal systems.

Law and Social Inquiry [K12 .A9135; also available electronically] journal of the American Bar Foundation; publishes papers that bridge legal studies and social sciences.

The Journal of Legal Studies [K10 .O54; also available electronically] published by the University of Chicago Law School; publishes interdisciplinary papers emphasizing social science approaches to legal studies.

**Note: Many journals that publish empirical research now require that data used in articles be sent to the journal so that data used in particular articles may be freely accessible to other scholars and researchers who wish to use existing data to replicate tests or for additional statistical testing. Thus, contacting these journals can be a good source of obtaining data sets as well. Scholars who publish in these journals may also make publically available all data that they use in their research.

LAW JOURNAL ARTICLES

These articles give background to empirical legal studies scholarship and more insight into methodology used. They may be found via HeinOnline.

Exchange, Empirical Research and the Goals of Legal Scholarship, 69 U. Chi. L. Rev. 1 (2002).

Gregory Mitchell, Empirical Legal Scholarship as Scientific Dialogue, 83 N. C. L. Rev. 167 (2004).

Symposium, Empirical and Experimental Methods in Law, 2002 U. Ill. L. Rev. 789 (2002).

Lee Epstein and Gary King, Building an Infrastructure for Empirical Research in the Law, 53 J. Legal Educ. 311 (2003).

Jennifer K. Robbennolt, Evaluating Empirical Research Methods: Using Empirical Research in Law and Policy, 81 Neb. L. Rev. 777 (2003).

James Lindgren, Predicting the Future of Empirical Legal Studies, 86 B.U. L. Rev. 1447-1460 (2006).

BIBLIOGRAPHY OF ELS RESEARCH

UCLA Law's Empirical Research Group (ERG) has a bibliography database of ELS publications. It is searchable by author name, subject, title, and date.

BLOG

The Empirical Legal Studies Blog is a resource for keeping up-to-date with the latest developments in Empirical Legal Studies.

SEARCHING FOR ELS RESEARCH RELATED TO A SPECIFIC TOPIC

This part of the guide offers suggestions for locating empirical legal studies in a specific discipline. If you are intereted in empirical studies of a particular legal topic, you can use keywords like "empirical" added to your search query (Ex: capital punishment and empirical). Search the following types of databases for results:

1) If you are looking for books, search Gulliver, our catalog, and run a keyword search." You can also run this search in Worldcat to find books in other libraries.

2) To find specific articles, search our collection of indexes.

3) To search for working papers yet to be published, search SSRN.

EMPIRICAL METHODOLOGY: RESEARCH

Because empirical legal studies requires the use of data analysis, researchers in this area need to have an understanding of the various methodolgies used by empirical legal scholars. The library has access to a number of works that discuss research methodologies (in a variety of disciplines), including:

E-BOOKS:
The Methodolgy of Empirical Macroeconomics, Kevin D. Hoover [E-book, available to GULC community]
Interpretation and Method:Empirical Research Methods and the Interpretive Turn, edited by Dvora Yanow & Peregrine Schwartz-Shea [E-book, available to GULC community)


BOOKS:
 Empirical Methods for Bioethics: A Primer, edited by Liva Jacoby, Laura A. Siminoff [QH315 .E47 2008]
Research Methods in Criminal Justice and Criminology, Frank E. Hagan [HV6024.5 .H33 2003]
Prove it with Figures : Empirical Methods in Law and Litigation, Hans Zeisel & David Kaye [KF320.S73 Z45 1997]

The Lauinger Library catalog may also be searched for books on empirical research methods. Searches can include keywords like: EMPIRICAL, METHODOLOGY, RESEARCH, QUANTITATIVE, SOCIAL SCIENCES

WEBSITES:
Roper Center's Polling 101: This site educates on the basics of polling; and it allows for basic and advanced public opinion searching. The site offers tutorials to teach fundamentals of public opinion polling.

GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY RESOURCES:

Center for New Designs in Learning and Scholarship (CNDLS) - Offers assistance to faculty and Georgetown University Graduate Students engaged in Quantitative Research (Contact: Dr. Rusan Chen)

DATA SETS & STATISTICS

Empirical Legal Studies uses data sets and statistics. Data sets are downloadable into stasticial software whereas statistics portals simply provide relevant statistics. For more serious empirical research, data sets that are downloadable and allow users to manipulate and tabulate data are generally what is required. Data sets generally must be downloaded into spreadsheet (like Excel) or statistical software (like SPSS and Stata). This section of the guide provides links to data sets and links to statistics available on the web.

General Sources of Statistical Information:

Statistical Sources: Z7551.S84
This print resource is an excellent starting point for any statistical research. It serves as an index to locate a variety of statistical resources. It is arranged alphabetically, by both location (and includes both domestic, foreign, and international statistical sources) and topics. The source for statistical information is then given, and if it is available online, a complete URL address is listed. The coverage aims to be comprehensive and is excellent for researchers looking for particular statistics on a subject, but unsure of where to begin. It is also updated annually, for currency of statistical information.

LexisNexis Statistical Datasets: (Georgetown Users Only) This database provides access to over 12 billion points of data in an easy to use interface that allows you to customize the content of over 580 datasets. This is an excellent place to begin your research. It currently allows you to export data to SAS, Excel and other statistical software programs (SPSS coming soon).

Social Sciences Research (Hosted downloadable datasets):

Georgetown University Social Science Data Archives: The most complete listing of data sets available to the Georgetown University community. Data sets are freely downloadable via the database or users may request to have data sets downloaded in a particular format and sent to them via CD. The archives are maintained by Dr. Rusan Chen, who provides assistance to Georgetown faculty and graduate students in using data sets and statistical analysis.

ICPSR: Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research also hosts the IDRC: International Data Resource Center (which acts as a clearinghouse for data at the ICPSR) and is the largest archive of digital social science data (provided by member institutions). Fully downloadable data sets are available. This organization provides access to data for research and a tutorial for data use. The ICPSR website provides a searchable database of all of its data holdings.

IQSS Dataverse Network: The Institute for Quantitative Social Science at Harvard University hosts the world's largest collection of social science research data. The data can be searched or browsed and is available for download. You can also create a dataverse of your own from hosted data.

Judicial and Court Statistics/Datasets:

Supreme Court Database: Hosted by Washington University, St. Louis, this website allows users to download datasets for over 200 different variable regarding U.S. Supreme Court decisions between the court terms of 1953 - 2008 (present year being updated).

Judicial Business of the United States Courts: Annual Reports : These reports contain summary statistics, including filing and terminations data sent to the Administrative Office of the Courts by the U.S. District Court clerks.

The Judicial Research Initiative, sponsored by the University of South Carolina : This project contains databases on the United States Supreme Court, United States Courts of Appeals, and State Supreme Courts.

U.S. Department of Justice: Bureau of Justice Statistics: The BJS collects, analyzes, publishes, and disseminates information on crime, criminal offenders, victims of crime, and the operation of justice systems at all levels of government.

Administrative Office of the Courts: offers a variety of statistical information on courtwide statistics for federal circuit and district courts, including the following:

  • Statistical Reports: PDFs of print publications of various statistical reviews like Bankruptcy Statistics, Federal Court Management Statistics, Statistical Tables for the Federal Judiciary, Wiretap reports
  • Judicial Facts and Figures (2005 - ): tables that show historical caseload data (by court, not by judge)
  • Judicial Productivity Reports(2010 -): Per the Civil Justice Reform Act of 1990, all motions pending more than six months, all bench trials submitted more than six months, all bankruptcy appeals pending more than six months, all Social Security appeal cases pending more than six months, and all civil cases pending more than three years.

Federal Judicial Center Library: Although this isn't a source for the collection of primary statistics and data, it is an excellent source to find research and examples of how people are using court/judicial statistics asa part of research in the judicial branch.

TRACfed: Under their "People" search option, you can locate individual caseload and case disposition data for federal court judges.

State Court Information:

National Center for State Courts: The Center's Research Hub includes the Court Statistics Project (CSP) which "collects and analyzes data relating to the work of our nation's state courts." On their Research Hub homepage, you can create customizable charts of particular state court filing data. They also provide a state by state guide to reported court data. Included on their website is:

  • State Court Caseload Statistics (2007): a good starting point when looking for state court statistics. It includes information on state court caseloads broken down by type of case.
  • List of Research Publications: Includes PDFs of a variety of statistical publications including Examining Trial Trends in State Courts;Jurisdiction, Caseload, and Timeliness of State Supreme Courts; National Center for State Courts Sentencing Attitudes Survey

For specific statistical resources for a particular state, please consult Georgetown Law Library's state research guide for that particular state.

Elections/Public Opinion Data:

General Social Survey: "Contains a standard 'core' of demographic, behavioral, and attitudinal questions, plus topics of special interest" (from the website). The annual survey is conducted by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago. Cal-Berkeley offers on their website an extremely user friendly interface that allows users to create quick tables as well as download data.

The Election Results Archive contains electronic data files on presidential and national legislative elections from 134 different countries dating back to 1974.

American National Election Studies website contains downloadable data sets for U.S. elections and public opinion from 1948 to the present.

Roper Center for Public Opinion Research (database available from Georgetown University Library): The iPOLL databank offers access to nearly half a million survey questions and answers asked in the US by more than 150 survey organizations from the 1930's to the present. Also included is access to the archives and publications of the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research, which contain over 17,000 datasets, JPOLL (Japanese Public Opinion), Japanese Data Library, Latin American Databank, and all issues of Public Perspective Magazine. Registration is necessary.

Gallup Brain: The Gallup Brain is a searchable database of Gallup public opinion polls and articles about those polls. It covers over 136,000 questions, and responses from more than 3.5 million people interviewed by Gallup since 1935. Also provides access to articles in the Gallup Management Journal. However, new polls are no longer being added to this site (polls since October 22, 2007). For newer polls, please refer to the website www.gallup.com.

Government Enforcement/Regulatory Data:

TRACfed (from the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse) provides data, both demographic and regarding enforcement and regulatory efforts, from the federal government. It allows users to generate reports based on specific criteria and drill variables they select. It now also offers data specific to particular statutes used in prosecution in federal cases.

Government Held Statistics and Demographic Data:

The Bureau of Labor Statistics provides the best online portal to Government Statistical Agency Websites . The Bureau of Labor Stastics links webpages with statistical information from over 70 federal agencies. The website also links government statistical websites from foreign and international statistical agencies as well. Thus, this website serves as an excellent portal to finding statistical information both for the United States and for several other foreign countries.

The U.S. Census Bureau collects and publishes a large amount of statistical data. This includes the Statistical Abstract of the United States (prior digital versions back to 1878 are available here), which contains statistics on social and economic conditions (print version: HA 202 .A225). If you need more detailed statistics than what is available in the Statistical Abstract, visit the web sites of the federal agencies that are responsible for collecting the data. Recommended sites include:

FedStats is a collection of statistics from over 100 federal agencies.

Data.gov is a new project by the federal government to make publically available government datasets. Although the project is in its infancy and relatively few datasets are currently available, new datasets are being uploaded to the database all the time. This is a good first resource to check when looking for government held datasets that might not be more commonly found in published agency reports.

If you need to access older statistical information, consult Historical Statistics of the United States, Earliest Times to the Present . (Also available in print at HA 202 .B87). The tables are well indexed and easy to use.

Tax Stats available from the IRS includes tables, articles and data that describe and measure elements of the US Tax System.

USASpending.gov allows users to search for particular spending contracts or award receipients, to determine the amount of money they have received over the years, to determine the agency origins of funds and to determine what the money was used for. Additionally, it allows users to access statistics of spending by agencies and geographic regions. Information can be viewed about top receipents of government funding, products and service and much more.

Source OECD (Available from the Georgetown University Library) is the online publications portal of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Contains over 1,500 books, 20 journals and newsletters, 10 statistical periodicals, reference works, and 600 interactive statistical data tables in over 25 database products published since 1998. Text can be searched by theme or country. Statistics can be searched by title and theme.

Lexis-Nexis Statistical: Abstracts and index to U.S. & state governments and privately published & international and intergovernmental statistical sources (ASI, SRI & IIS).

Foreign and International Statistics:

For international coverage, UNdata is a new comprehensive database offering access to worldwide health, education, industry and demographic statistics. Key global indicators are highlighted also.

World Bank Data and datasets is freely available on the World Bank's new electronic interface. The data includes more than 2,000 economic and data indicators from countries around the world. Much of the data goes back for fifty years or more. This is an excellent source to begin your research if you are looking for economic indicators from around the world.

Eurostat (Statistics from the European Union) - This online statistical source is published by the European Union and publishes statistical information for European countries in the following areas: Population; Urban Statistics; Gross Domestic Product; Household Accounts; Structural Business Statistics; Labour Market; Sectoral Productivity; Labor Costs; Transport; Tourism; Science, Technology and Innovation; Health; and Agriculture.

Source OECD (Available from the Georgetown University Library) is the online publications portal of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Contains over 1,500 books, 20 journals and newsletters, 10 statistical periodicals, reference works, and 600 interactive statistical data tables in over 25 database products published since 1998. Text can be searched by theme or country. Statistics can be searched by title and theme.

International Financial Statistics Online (database available from the Georgetown University Library): This International Monetary Fund source provides historical and current financial information on member countries. Includes exchange rates, inflation and deflation, government finance, balance of payments, money and banking, and national income accounts.

International Labour Organization: provides international labor statistics as far back as 1969. This hub page provides links to a number of different databases that index statistics on topics ranging from labor safety, child labor, labor force surveys, to economic and social development.

WomanStats (available for free via the web, but registration is required): This database offers researchers the ability to select from over 260 variables regarding the status of women for 175 different countries. The database includes variables measuring women's health, treatment under the law, violence against women, and other indicators of women's well-being.

Statistical Yearbook for Asia and the Pacific (2008): available from the United Nations; provides a variety of demographic, social, and economic statistics for countries in Asia and the Pacific.

Statistical Organizations/ Publishers/ Portals:

The American Statistical Index abstracts and indexes statistical charts within publications.

LexisNexis Statistical is a comprehensive source that indexes and abstracts statistical information from over 100,000 U.S. government publications starting in 1973, state and private sources starting in 1980, and approximately 2000 documents from international organizations starting in 1983. Full text or web links are provided for some citations. For those abstracts where full text or web links are not provided, Lauinger Library and the Library of Congress have the microfiche sets that accompany the index. These sets are called ASI (American Statistics Index Microfiche Library) and IIS Microfiche Library (Index to International Statistics Microfiche Library).

The National Tax Association (NTA) has a collection of links to federal government agencies (and other sites) that provide statistical data on the web. These links are to all types of statistical data, not just tax statistics.

The University of Michigan has an excellent guide to statistical resources on the web.

The Cambridge Dictionary of Statistics can be accessed online by Georgetown users through eBrary.

Health Statistics and Demographics:

The Henry J, Kaiser Family Foundation provides StateHealthFacts.org, a useful website portal for statistics and demographic information regarding State Health Data, particularly for research involving Health Care policy and law.

WomanStats (available for free via the web, but registration is required): This database offers researchers the ability to select from over 260 variables regarding the status of women for 175 different countries. The database includes variables measuring women's health, treatment under the law, violence against women, and other indicators of women's well-being.

ChildStats: This database offers national indicators of well-being for children. The website also includes other reports on children and families in the United States.

Kids Count Data Center: hosted by the Annie P. Casey Foundation; The website provides statistics regarding child welfare by state but also allows for state to state comparisons.

Education Statistics:

National Center for Education Statistics: the primary federal entity responsible for collecting and analyzing data related to education.

Crime Statistics:

Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics: brings together data from more than 100 sources about many aspects of criminal justice in the United States. The Sourcebook contains over 1,000 data tables and is supported by data from the U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics.

TOOLS FOR EMPIRICAL LEGAL STUDIES:

STATISTICS SOFTWARE PACKAGES:

There are several statistics software packages; here are links to three of the most popular ones:

Stata, SPSS, and SAS.

Statistical Computing Resources is a guide by UCLA's Academic Technology Services. It includes starter guides for each of the three software packages.

See this post for a discussion of the software packages.

**Georgetown faculty and graduate students have free access to these software pacakages through resources on main campus.

CONFERENCES & WORKSHOPS:

UCLA's Empirical Research Group has complied a list of workshops and seminars.

TEXTBOOKS:

Advanced Statistics Demystified is a textbook that can be accessed online by Georgetown users through eBrary.

OTHER GUIDES AND TUTORIALS

Empirical and Non-Legal Research Tutorial - Chicago-Kent School of Law

Statistical Sources Guide - Moritz College of Law, The Ohio State University

Web Center for Social Research Methods - Interactive guide to selecting the best statistical test for your data.

Substantially Revised 10/09 (LS)
Last Updated 6/10 (LS)

Page last saved 23-Sep-2011