Faculty Lists for "Empirical Legal Studies"

UPDATE:  The faculty lists should include those who do empirical work (in an economic, political science, sociological, or psychological vein), not simply those who are co-authors with those with the relevant disciplinary skills for empirical work.

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Various readers had asked that I run one of the on-line surveys about faculty quality in the "empirical legal studies" area broadly construed.  To that end, here's a draft of faculty lists for schools that might well rank in "the top ten" in this area.  I'm sure the lists are woefully incomplete, so please post additional names of faculty who works in this area in the comments.  And if there's a school that might rank in the top ten in this area, post that information in the comments as well.  Please post corrections int he comments below, do NOT e-mail me.  I need to have the corrections in one place.  If there's a very sensitive matter, you can e-mail me.  Thanks.

Faculty with an * have a primary appointment in another unit, as well as in the Law School. 

Columbia University: Jeffrey Fagan, M. Scott Hemphill, Bert Huang, Robert J. Jackson, Jr., Ronald J. Mann, Nathaniel Persily

Cornell University: Theodore Eisenberg, Michael Frakes, Valerie Hans, Michael Heise, Jeffrey Rachlinski, Stewart Schwab, *Martin Wells

Duke University: Daniel L. Chen, G. Mitu Gulati, Donald L. Horowitz, Jack Knight, Kimberly Krawiec, Neil Vidmar

Harvard University: Lucian Bebchuk, John Coates, Jacob Gersen, D. James Greiner, J. Mark Ramseyer, Mark Roe, Holger Spamann, Guhan Subramanian, Elizabeth Warren,

New York University: Jennifer Arlen, Ryan Bubb, Stephen Choi, Samuel Estreicher, James B. Jacobs, Florencia Marotta-Wurgler, Geoffrey Miller, Catherine M. Sharkey

Northwestern University: Bernard S. Black, Thomas J. Brennan, Peter di Cola, Shari Seidman Diamond, Zev Eigen, Ezra Friedman, Tonja Jacobi, Jonathan J. Koehler, James Lindgren, Kate Litvak, Janice Nadler, *Robert Nelson, Max Schanzenbach, Emerson Tiller

Stanford University: Michelle Landis Dauber, John J. Donohue III, David Freeman Engstrom, Deborah Hensler, Daniel Ho, Alison Morantz, Joan Petersilia

University of California, Berkeley: Prasad Krishnamurthy, Katarina Linos, Robert Macoun, Justin McCrary, and Anne Joseph O’Connell, Kevin Quinn, Daniel Rubinfeld, Jonathan Simon, Eric Talley, Franklin Zimring

University of Chicago: Lisa Bernstein, Tom Ginsburg, Bernard Harcourt, William Hubbard, Anup Malani, Edward R. Morrison, Thomas J. Miles, Eric Posner

University of Illinois: Kenworthey Bilz, Nuno Garoupa, David Hyman, Robert Lawless, Jennifer Robbennolt

University of Michigan, Ann Arbor: Alica Davis Evans, Samuel R. Gross, Vik Khanna, John Pottow, J.J. Prescott, Adam C. Pritchard

University of Pennsylvania: David S. Abrams, Jonathan Klick, Theodore Ruger, Tess Wilkinson-Ryan

University of Southern California: Lee Epstein, Daniel Klerman, Thomas Lyon, Mathew McCubbins, Dan Simon.

University of Texas, Austin: Ronen Avraham, Frank Cross, Jens Damann, Julius Getman, Stefanie Lindquist, Angela Litwin, H.W. Perry, *Mary Rose, Charles Silver, Jay Westbrook

University of Virginia: Michal Barzuza, Quinn Curtis, Joshua Fischman, Michael Gilbert, Richard Hyndes, Paul Mahoney, Gregory Mitchell, John Monahan, *Bobbie Spellman, Mila Versteeg

Vanderbilt University: Tracey George, Chris Guthrie, Joni Hersch, Owen Jones, Robert Mikos, W. Kip Viscusi

Yale University: Ian Ayres, Richard Brooks, Robert Ellickson, Christine Jolls, Dan Kahan, Yair Listokin, Tracey Meares, Tom Tyler

Comments

[Alec Stone Sweet]

Interesting - I work in the area. A Stone Sweet, Yale
http://works.bepress.com/alec_stone_sweet/

[Scott Altman]

For USC, you might add Nancy Staudt, Ehud Kamar, and Ed McCaffery.

[Paul H Edelman]

You've missed a number of people at Vanderbilt: Randall Thomas, Nancy King, Erin O'Hara O'Connor, Paige Skiba, and me (Paul Edelman).

[frankcross]

Gotta add John de Figuereido to Duke

[Lisa Bressman]

For Vanderbilt, you might include (in addition to those mentioned by Paul Edelman): Margaret Blair, Ed Cheng, and Mike Vandenbergh.

[Matt]

I'm not 100% sure what counts as "empirical" legal studies, but for Penn, it's plausible to add Paul Robinson, who does significant work involving surveys (and other methods) testing people's "intuitions of justices" (often with collaborators), and perhaps Stephen Morse, for his work on psychology and the law (in particular neuroscience) though I'm less sure about whether the later should be included.

[Reuel Schiller]

UC Hastings has a bunch of young scholars who work in this area: Hadar Aviram, Dorit Rubenstein Reiss, and Jodi Short (who will be joining us next year from Georgetown), Osagie Obasagie, and Ben Depoorter. Each of these folks works at the intersction of the social sciences and the law. Some of our more senior folks also work in this area: Joan Williams, David Faigman, and Clark Freshman, for example.

[Suzanna Sherry]

Another missing Vanderbilt empiricist: Brian Fitzpatrick. (See An Empirical Study of Class Action Settlements and Their Fee Awards, 7 J Empirical Leg Stud 811 (2010.)

[Laura Rosenbury]

Washington University: Andrew Martin, Pauline Kim, Adam Badawi, David Law, Rebecca Hollander-Blumoff, Scott Baker, *Jim Spriggs, Peter Wiedenbeck

BL COMMENT: Thanks, Wash U shoulld clearly be on the list.

[Rob]

Like Matt, I'm not sure what ELS, except as a movement, means. Why isn't "Quantitative Legal Analysis" more accurate? Surely most historians are involved in empirical legal studies, but I don't see anyone including them.

BL COMMENT: Many of the psychologists and even some of the political scientists aren't doing quantiative work. I don't know of anyone who thinks history is part of "empirical legal studies," so whatever the fuzzy borders of the category, it doesn't include scholars whose primary work is historical.

[Scott Altman]

Also for USC, you can add (joint law and business) Mark Weinstein and John Matsusaka.

[Kate Litvak]

For Northwestern, add: Key Ayotte, Ron Allen, and Eugene Kontorovich. Also, your list includes people who are not themselves empiricists, but have co-authored an empirical paper or two with an empiricist. With that definition, Northwestern's list of empiricists will further expand.

BL COMMENT: I am inclined to think the lists should not include co-authors, who do not themselves have any relevant empirical skills. But I'm happy to be convinced otherwise.

[Margaret Jane Radin]

For Michigan, you might add: Jim Hines, Veronica Santarosa, Sonja Starr, and Laura Beny

[JJ Prescott]

Also to add for Michigan:

Margo Schlanger
John DiNardo (joint appointment)
Phoebe Ellsworth
Michael Barr

[Ken Bamberger]

Berkeley's list should also include: Lauren Edelman, Calvin Morrill, Catherine (KT) Albiston and Victoria Plaut, empiricists trained in sociology, anthropology and psychology.

[Ken Bamberger]

. . . and also for Berkeley, Robert Bartlett.

[Larry Kramer]

Given some of the folks you've included at other school, for Stanford, faculty members whose work is largely or entirely empirical also include: Rob Daines, Mark Kelman, Dan Kessler, Mike Klausner, Mark Lemley, Jeff Strnad, George Triantis.

[Richard Hynes]

For Virginia, you should add George Geis, Jason Johnston and John Morley. In addition, it is "Hynes", not "Hyndes"

[Josh Wright]

George Mason: Bruce Kobayashi, Bruce Johnsen, Tom Hazlett, Kevin McCabe, Terrence Chorvat, Henry Butler, Elina Treyger, *Thomas Strattman, Josh Wright

BL COMMENT: Thanks, Josh, I'll certainly add GMU.

[Jennifer Laurin]

Texas's list should also include the following folks: *Jeffrey Abramson, Mira Ganor, John Golden, Tom McGarity, Bill Sage, James Spindler, Matt Spitzer,and Wendy Wagner.

BL COMMENT: Jeffrey Abramson is not an empirical scholar. Some of the others are arguable, but I am getting worried that the lists are getting padded in meaningless ways (and not just in this case). Am I wrong?

[Rex Bossert]

UC Irvine School of Law: Olufunmilayo Arewa, Elizabeth Loftus, Katherine Porter, Shauhin Talesh, Christopher Whytock

[Jennifer Arlen]

Please add the following to the NYU list
Vicki Been
Marcel Kahan
Lewis Kornhauser (assuming experimental empirical analysis counts)
Oren Bar-Gill (same)
Barton Beebe
Adam Cox
Richard Revesz

[Lauren B. Edelman, Associate Dean for Jurisprudence and Social Policy]

The Berkeley Jurisprudence and Social Policy Program, which is a PhD Program that is part of Berkeley Law, includes many empirical legal scholars trained in the disciplines. In addition to those you mention (Robert MacCoun, Justin McCrary, Kevin Quinn, Dan Rubinfeld, Jonathan Simon, and Frank Zimring), and those added by Ken Bamberger (Lauren Edelman, Calvin Morrill, Catherine Albiston, and Victoria Plaut), JSP empirical scholars include Taeku Lee, and a number of qualitative empirical legal scholars: Kristin Luker, Malcolm Feeley, David Lieberman, Karen Tani, Harry Scheiber). Also, other non-JSP Berkeley law faculty who do empirical work are Robert Bartlett, Eric Biber, and David Sklansky.

[Anita Bernstein]

This thread has devolved into what, in hindsight, anyone could have predicted: Vague criteria for inclusion & no criteria for exclusion + law professors' enthusiasm for rankings & Top Ten competitions + inviting readers to nominate their own schools = padding. Which I gather BL acknowledged this morning.

Just as a point of methodology, wouldn't it make more sense to draw up a list of empiricists--using some relatively solid definition of the word like the one Brian's anonymous informant mentioned--and then, if we really want to, consider whether certain schools appear prominent?

BL COMMENT: I doubt there is an uncontroversial definition, and in the past this method has worked well. But it just goes to show that either ELS is a flaky 'field' or ELS is so prestigious that everyone wnats to be counted in it!

[J.J. Prescott]

For Michigan, please also add Jill Horwitz...