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Using The West Key Number System As A Data Collection And Coding Device For Empirical Legal Scholarship: Demonstrating The Method Via A Study Of Contract Interpretation, Joshua M. Silverstein

Faculty Scholarship

Empirical research is an increasingly important type of legal scholarship. Such research generally requires the collection and coding of large quantities of data. These tasks pose critical challenges for legal scholars. Most crucially, they are often resource-intensive. The primary purpose of this article is to explain how researchers can use the West Key Number System to dramatically streamline the process of data collection and coding. The article accomplishes this, in part, through a demonstration: it employs the Key Number System to conduct an empirical study of contract interpretation.

Contract interpretation is one of the most significant areas of commercial law. …