Social Science Statistics Blog

Interesting find, Mike. Seems a little foolhardy to build a database of academic papers in the age of Google Scholar -- that was my first thought. Then I looked at the database for a minute and thought perhaps I was wrong; maybe they have indeed produced a very valuable contribution by providing such careful coding of paper topics and by limiting the search to law journals and closely related empirical fields. So I did a quick comparison: I looked at the papers classified under "Juror Bias" and the search results for "juror bias" on Google Scholar (restricting to 2005 and after, to match the ELS's date range). I didn't take the time to see whether all 7 papers on the ELS database appeared on the Google Scholar list, but several were, and many interesting-looking (and widely cited) papers were on GS but not on ELS. I'll be interested to know what others find.

Hi Mike and Andy,

A quick reference for translations of abbreviations for commonly cited law journals can be found here: http://www.law.cornell.edu/citation/. The Bluebook, a Uniform System of Citation, (http://www.legalbluebook.com/) is the primary handbook for legal citation.

To the endless frustration of those of us who try to do interdisciplinary work in law and political science, the two disciplines have created completely separate research infrastructures. Law review articles are not generally available on Google Scholar, the first research portal for many social scientists. Social science journals are not generally available on Westlaw and Lexis, the two private (and thus not free) legal database systems through which most legal scholars and practitioners do their research. At Harvard, Westlaw and Lexis are inaccessible to those without an affiliation with HLS. Based on my experiences in law and graduate school, I'd speculate that many researchers don't venture far outside the research systems native to their subject areas. Thus, having a database "outside the systems" can be useful to help interdisciplinary researchers hone in on their specific areas of interest. This may be especially true since empirical research is relatively new (or at least newly trendy) in the legal academy and can be hard to separate out from other studies on Westlaw and Lexis. As Andy suggests above, however, neither ELS nor Google Scholar alone may be comprehensive in this area.

Hi Mike and Andy,

A quick reference for translations of abbreviations for commonly cited law journals can be found here: http://www.law.cornell.edu/citation/. The Bluebook, a Uniform System of Citation, (http://www.legalbluebook.com/) is the primary handbook for legal citation.

To the endless frustration of those of us who try to do interdisciplinary work in law and political science, the two disciplines have created completely separate research infrastructures. Law review articles are not generally available on Google Scholar, the first research portal for many social scientists. Social science journals are not generally available on Westlaw and Lexis, the two private (and thus not free) legal database systems through which most legal scholars and practitioners do their research. At Harvard, Westlaw and Lexis are inaccessible to those without an affiliation with HLS. Based on my experiences in law and graduate school, I'd speculate that many researchers don't venture far outside the research systems native to their subject areas. Thus, having a database "outside the systems" can be useful to help interdisciplinary researchers hone in on their specific areas of interest. This may be especially true since empirical research is relatively new (or at least newly trendy) in the legal academy and can be hard to separate out from other studies on Westlaw and Lexis. As Andy suggests above, however, neither ELS nor Google Scholar alone may be comprehensive in this area.

Dear Mike,

While the library and any bibliographies also be available for exchange students like me?

Thanks,

GL

Jill -- I share your frustration with accessing materials from the legal academy. But I do see a bunch of law journal articles on Google scholar: >20,000 hits each for "Harvard Law Review" and "Yale Law Journal."

Andy,

This is true. However, the law journal articles available on Google Scholar represent only a small fraction of what is available on Lexis or Westlaw.

Jill

Also note that ELS's definition of "empirical" is probably different from ours:

"The following rubrics were used to identify "empirical" research. (1) the presence of tables or charts based upon original empirical research, or (2) the inclusion of tables or charts from other publications (i.e., the Census) with more than a cursory interpretation of the data. The rule of thumb for (2) is whether another scholar would cite the article or the original source to support the proposition supported by the data. The third (3) rubric is whether the article contains a detailed description of the research methodology. This could include protocols for quantitative research (data collection) or qualitative research (interviews). If any one of these was met with satisfaction, the article was included in the database."

The ELS bibliography is my project, and I'm grateful for the comments here. We tried to make it interdisciplinary by combing the top 3 social science journals in each discipline, as well as a bunch of law reviews. The social sciences have a tradition of using specific tools for particular problems. ELS doesn't have that, yet. That's why the definition of "empirical" might seem bizarre; it's a reaction to the absence of norms.
If you have any additions or corrections please send me an e-mail and I'll do my best to incorporate them quickly.

That database really helps. In Brazil, where I live, legal researchers are not used to conduct empirical legal studies and it is very handful to find out ELS bibliography and see what is going on abroad.

Ops: I mean "very handy".

I am now at Harvard, and... If somebody else searches for the answer, the Library at Harvard IS open for exchange students and studying at Harvard is great ;-)

so far, so good haha