Academic

Conference Announcement: Empirical Legal Studies at Berkeley

By Lawrence Solum

BUILDING THEORY THROUGH EMPIRICAL LEGAL STUDIES
Center for the Study of Law and Society
University of California, Berkeley
Friday, April 24, 2009

Empirical Legal Studies is often associated with sophisticated quantitative work and less often associated with theory.  The Center for the Study of Law and Society at the University of California, Berkeley is holding a one day conference to highlight and to foster discussion about the ways in which empirical legal studies (both quantitative and qualitative) can be used to generate, test, and elaborate socio-legal theory. Speakers from both the legal academy and the social sciences will present ongoing theoretically-informed empirical work and discussants, as well as the audience, will be invited to engage in a productive dialog about the intersection of empirical legal studies and law and social science theory. We also hope to foster connections across disciplines and among scholars in this area that will continue long after this initial conference. The conference will feature a Keynote Address by Richard Lempert, Stein Distinguished University Professor Emeritus of Law and Sociology at the University of Michigan and former director of the Social and Behavioral Sciences Division at the National Science Foundation. The presentations that follow are organized into three panels: Litigation, Complaint Mobilization, and Inequality; Law and Organizations; and Judicial and Agency Politics. The full program and abstracts of the papers that will be presented are attached.

The conference is open to all scholars interested in the nexus of empirical legal studies and socio-legal theory. There is no fee to attend but we do require registration by February 1, 2009 in order to plan for lunch and the closing reception. To register, to view the complete program, for contact information, and for information on hotels, travel, etc., please visit the conference website at http://www.law.berkeley.edu/3265.htm

Conference Program

Continental Breakfast 8:00 ? 8:45

Welcome 8:45 ? 9:00
Lauren Edelman, Director, Center for the Study of Law and Society
Christopher Edley, Dean, UC Berkeley School of Law

Session I:  Keynote Address 9:00 ? 10:00 Richard Lempert, University of Michigan (emeritus)

Coffee Break 10:00 ? 10:30

Session II: Litigation, Complaint Mobilization, and Inequality 10:30 ? 12:00
John Hagan, Northwestern University (Discussant/Moderator)
Calvin Morrill, U.C. Irvine, Lauren Edelman, U.C. Berkeley, Karolyn Tyson, University of North Carolina, and Richard Arum, N.Y.U. ?Law and Race in U.S. High Schools: Legal Mobilization and Perceived Rights Violations among Youth.?
Sandra Levitsky, University of Michigan ??What Rights??:  The Construction of Political Claims to American Health Care Entitlements?
Margo Schlanger, Washington University ?EEOC Employment Discrimination Injunctions: Trends and Travails

Lunch Break 12:00 ? 1:30

Session III:  Law and Organizations 1:30 ? 3:00   
Mark Suchman, Brown University (Discussant/Moderator)
Alexandra Kalev, University of Arizona, and Tristin Green, Seton Hall ?Organizational Structures and Relational Discrimination: New Avenues for Linking Macro and Micro Mechanisms of Stratification?
Lauren Edelman, U.C. Berkeley, Linda Krieger, U.C. Berkeley & University of Hawaii, Scott Eliason, University of Arizona, Catherine R. Albiston, U.C. Berkeley, and Virginia Mellema, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ?When Organizations Rule: Judicial Deference to Institutionalized Employment Structures?
Orly Lobel, University of San Diego, and Yuval Feldman, Bar Ilan University ?The Incentives Matrix: Experimental Studies of the Comparative Effectiveness of Enforcement Systems?

Coffee Break 3:00 ? 3:30

Session IV: Judicial and Agency Politics 3:30 ? 5:00
Christopher Zorn, Pennsylvania State University (Discussant/Moderator)
Anne Joseph O'Connell, U.C. Berkeley ?Vacant Offices in the Administrative State:  Delays in Filling Top Executive Agency Positions, 1977-2005?
Daniel Ho, Stanford University, and Kevin Quinn, Harvard University ?The Empirical Dimensions of the Standing Doctrine and Judicial Voting?
Stephanie Lindquist, University of Texas, and Pamela Corley, Vanderbilt University ?Strategies of Judicial Review?

Closing Reception 5:00 ? 7:00

Full post as published by Legal Theory Blog on December 08, 2008 (boomark / email).