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Go Out And Look: The Challenge And Promise Of Empirical Scholarship In Contract Law, David Snyder

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

This introduction to the symposium on Empirical Scholarship in Contract Law, sponsored in January 2006 by the Contracts Section of the Association of American Law Schools and published in the Tulane Law Review, pushes for an increased focus on the real world and argues that highly quantitative statistical analyses of published judicial opinions are no more empirical than simple case notes. While this short essay argues for increased rigor in empirical research, it also recognizes the limits of scientific methods for legal analysis and suggests that the seduction of scientific appearances, now as in the days of Langdell's legal science, …