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Empirical methods for legal scholars (LAW-DS-LEGEMP-25)

LAW-DS-LEGEMP-25

Description

This seminar examines methodology in legal research, with particular attention to empirical approaches. It focuses on specific methods especially relevant to law researchers, including content analysis, network analysis, process tracing, and case studies. Participants will discuss how these methods can be calibrated to answer questions about the law and engage with readings that illustrate their use in legal scholarship, socio-legal research, and political science. The seminar emphasizes active participation, with presentations, group work, peer feedback, and short assignments.

The course is not an introduction to legal methods or empirical research. Instead, it assumes some prior knowledge about writing a research thesis in law, including the distinction between legal questions and questions about the law, and how to articulate and justify the ‘legal method’ and doctrinal approach. The seminar offers a more methodologically and empirically oriented set of readings and addresses issues of validity, reliability, and research integrity in empirical work. It opens with an interactive lecture introducing the variety of research methods and continues with the discussion of social science techniques such as content analysis, network analysis, process tracing, and case studies as used in legal and social science research.

N.B.

• Compared to the seminar Research Design for Empirical Legal and Socio-Legal Studies, the current seminar has a more empirically oriented and methodologically challenging reading list
• The seminar will be taught in person, with the possibility of remote participation in individual sessions in exceptional circumstances
• The seminar is discussion-based, and participants will be asked to present or actively discuss the readings.

Course reading list: https://readinglist.eui.eu/leganto/public/39EUI_INST/lists/2977849520008406?auth=SAML&idpCode=SAML_LEGANTO

First, Second & Third Term: registration from 22 to 26 September 2025

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