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Inside The Law School Classroom: Toward A New Legal Realist Pedagogy, Elizabeth Mertz

Vanderbilt Law Review

In recent years, the legal academy has been experiencing a strong renewed interest in empirical legal research. Referred to by various analysts as a "new legal realism" or as "empirical legal studies," this restored focus on the social sciences in many ways echoes an earlier era of legal realism in American law, with some important differences.' . . .

This Article combines these two themes: empirical research on law and careful examination of legal education. It reports on an empirical study of legal education, which I have been conducting under the auspices of the American Bar Foundation (a research institute …