Professor David Schwartz has written his first post as guest blogger at the group legal blog Concurring Opinions. In the post, Schwartz examines “whether empirical legal scholars have or should have special ethical responsibilities.” Read an excerpt from the post below:
Why special responsibilities? Two basic reasons. First, nearly all law reviews lack formal peer review. The lack of peer review potentially permits dubious data to be reported without differentiation alongside quality data. Second, empirical legal scholarship has the potential to be extremely influential on policy debates because it provides “data” to substantiate or refute claims. Unfortunately, many consumers of empirical legal scholarship — including other legal scholars, practitioners, judges, the media, and policy makers — are not sophisticated in empirical methods. Even more importantly, subsequent citations of empirical findings by legal scholars rarely take care to explain the study’s qualifications and limitations. Instead, subsequent citations often amplify the “findings” of the empirical study by over-generalizing the results.
Read the rest of Prof. Schwartz’s post at Concurring Opinions. Check back here for more updates on Prof. Schwartz’s activity.
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