Law Commons^™

Empirical Law And Economics, Jonah B. Gelbach, Jonathan Klick

All Faculty Scholarship

Empirical work has grown in importance in law and economics. This growth coincides with improvements in research designs in empirical microeconomics more generally. In this essay, we provide a stylized discussion of some trends over the last two or three decades, linking the credibility revolution in empirical micro to the ascendancy of empirical work in law and economics. We then provide some methodological observations about a number of commonly used approaches to estimating policy effects. The literature on the economics of crime and criminal procedure illustrates the ways in which many of these techniques have been used successfully. Other fields, …

Converting Benchslaps To Backslaps: Instilling Professional Accountability In New Legal Writers By Teaching And Reinforcing Context, Heidi K. Brown

Articles & Chapters

A search in published and unpublished court decisions for derivations of phrases like "poorly written brief" or "failure to follow court rules" yields an alarming multitude of case opinions in which judges admonish lawyers of all levels of experience for shoddy briefs or for flouting non-negotiable substantive and procedural rules. Legal bloggers have affectionately dubbed these public reprimands "benchslaps."

Section I of this article provides a contextual background that professors and practitioners can share with rookie legal writers, using judicial opinions to demonstrate the eight most-common ways that attorney work product falls short of judges' expectations and, more importantly, how …