The Social Science of Law and Courts Seminar

3 units

What is the effect of a car driver's race on the frequency and nature of police interactions? How does the introduction of ranked-choice voting change electoral outcomes? Do elected judges vote differently than appointed judges on controversial issues? How do judges’ personal characteristics affect their decisions and the decisions of other judges who hear a case with them? What is the effect of patents on follow-on innovation? How does copyright enforcement affect the trajectory of new technologies like AI? Do laws banning non-compete agreements promote economic development? Does lobbying increase corporate returns? To study these and other important questions about law and courts, we read papers published in the past decade or two in leading social science journals. The seminar thus serves as an introduction to the social scientific study of law and courts. The term "social scientific" is used here in contradistinction to "doctrinal" as well as "normative." Our focus will not be on legal interpretation, normative argumentation, or advocacy, but on positive scientific analysis—an attempt to understand, as systematically and rigorously as possible, how the world works. To better engage with cutting-edge social science research, the course teaches students the fundamentals of social scientific methodology. We learn about the concept of causal inference, different methods for enabling credible causal identification, and some basic ideas in choice theory and game theory. Mastering methods at this level does not require any fancy work in mathematics or statistics, but it does require serious-mindedness and a willingness to learn things that might fall outside your academic comfort zone. Ultimately, the course hopes to instill greater curiosity in academic research, make you a better-informed citizen, and give you the skills to be a better consumer of data and empirical studies, both in your legal practice (say, when working with expert witnesses) and in life. A deeper scientific understanding of law-related issues can also ground well- informed normative theorizing and advocacy. Above all, the course will hopefully show you that rigorous scientific thinking about law-related issues can be a lot of fun, and perhaps even encourage you to pursue research in this vein. Grades are based on participation in classroom discussions, in-class quizzes, short response papers, and in-class presentations of one or more of the papers on the reading list. Writing a longer paper might be an option, at the instructor's discretion.