Many empirical researchers believe that our best understandings of sociolegal phenomena emerge from combining qualitative and quantitative methods -- whether within one study, or through triangulating the results of multiple studies. This panel focuses on the issues involved in translating between qualitative and quantitative kinds of research. Presenters discuss issues that emerge in using software packages like Atlis -- whether in moving between quantitative and qualitative assessments of jurors' conversations, or in conducting qualitative and quantitative research on discrimination. The panel begins with a didactic presentation aimed at those who are unfamiliar with these kinds of methodologies, and then proceeds to a discussion aimed as well at researchers who are experienced with this sort of work. The panel concludes with a discussion of dilemmas involved in conducting quantitative research on qualitatively sensitive issues at global and local levels.
The term “new legal realism” has appeared over 200 times in the law review literature but has widely divergent meanings to different groups of scholars in different disciplines. To some, it simply means empiricism, to others behavioral economics, to others institutional analysis, and still others reflexive inquiry and qualitative research. Obviously, the “old legal realism” had many branches and the “new” may have as many, too. However, given an explosion of interest in empirical work in the academy, we believe it time to bring together scholars with divergent views about the meaning of new legal realism to engage with each other in a single forum.
**SEE WORKING PAPERS page for papers by Nourse and Shaffer, and by Dagan
