Erasmus Centre of Empirical Legal Studies (ECELS) offers an educational programme to develop passive as well as active empirical legal study skills. Given that many arguments related to legal issues require empirical evidence, it is common for legal scholars to cite empirical studies without actively engaging in empirical research themselves. For that purpose, it is important that legal scholars are trained how to interpret empirical work and be able to critically assess the value and limitations of the studies which might support their arguments. Passive understanding of empirical legal studies is also important to “speak the language” of the methodology scholars, with whom legal scholars may fruitfully collaborate. ECELS also aspires to offer training in the active understanding of empirical legal studies. Such skills can enable legal scholars to conduct empirical research themselves.
Lecturer: Prof. Peter Mascini
Programme: EGSL
Empirical legal research (ELR) entails the systematic observation of social reality with the aim of understanding law in society. In this course you will be taught the basics of how to execute different parts of the so-called empirical research cycle. It will help you understand some of the challenges of empirical work that a researcher in the field will face and to address these challenges. The course consists of five classes of three hours each and assignments before, during or after each class. After the ending of the course, you are offered the opportunity to schedule an individual meeting with me to discuss the research design of your own empirical research. The target audience for the advanced introduction to ELR comprises of researchers (PhD researchers or ESL staff) who want to conduct empirical research or who want to get a more in-depth introduction to this method.
The course will only take place if at least five researchers elect it.
Course guide Advanced Introduction to Empirical Legal Research
Lecturers: Dr. Aylin Aydin-Cakir
Programme: EDLE
The goal of this course is to equip students with a practical and comprehensive set of tools conducting high-quality empirical research in the field of legal studies. The course focuses on the theory and practice of causal inference in empirical legal studies. Students will learn how to design and evaluate research that seeks to identify casual relationships, using both qualitative (eg. comparative case studies, process-tracing) and quantitative (eg. experiments, difference-in-differences, regression discontinuity, instrumental variables). While the course introduces statistical foundations of some of these approaches, the emphasis is on intuition and application rather than mathematical derivations. Students will learn to understand the logic behind each method, recognize when, and how to use them appropriately in their own research and critically assess published studies that employ these techniques. published works in the discipline that make use of these techniques.
Lecturers: Prof. Pieter Desmet and Dr. Aylin Aydin-Cakir
Programme: EDLE
The goal of this course is to give students a comprehensive toolbox for producing cutting edge applied empirical research, with focus on the theory and practice behind causal inference in empirical legal studies. We will cover methods such as experiments, differences-in-differences, regression discontinuity, instrumental variables.
Lecturer: Dr Jaroslaw Kantorowicz (Practice)
Programme: EDLE
This course will shed light on how novel computationally intensive methodological developments, which have lapped at the shores of social science for several years now, can be productively used in legal research. We will focus on supervised and unsupervised automated content analysis techniques and social network analysis. Prior knowledge of statistics is required. The instructor will use the programme R and will provide the students with external videos to acquire basic knowledge of R prior to the beginning of the course.
Lecturers: Prof. Jonathan Klick (Theory) and Dr Jaroslaw Kantorowicz (Practice)
Programme: EDLE
Legal scholarship has grown increasingly empirical with researchers attempting to test legal theories that had previously been based on anecdotes or intuitions. Because we generally cannot run controlled experiments in legal and policy contexts, a number of issues arise with respect to causal inference. This course will highlight strategies used in empirical law and economics to isolate how legal and regulatory changes affect individual behaviour. Prior knowledge of statistics and STATA/R is required.
Lecturer: Prof. Christoph Engel
Programme: EDLE
Machine learning is the core of artificial intelligence. With the drastic increase in computing power, and even more the availability of large legal or law-related data sets, these methods are increasingly invading the law. Yet before a legal researcher can master their power for her own research, she needs to understand their logic, and must learn how to implement them computationally. Prior knowledge of statistics and is required. If participants want to implement the code themselves, they should have a basic understanding of R's syntax.
Note: Students who do not have prior knowledge in statistics, but are interested in following the advanced courses, may consider following external online statistics courses. For example, two Coursera courses (by UvA): Basic Statistics and Inferential Statistics.
Lecturers: Prof. Pieter Desmet and Dr. Aylin Aydin-Cakir
Program: EMLE
Modern law and economics rely heavily on empirical evidence, and this hands-on course introduces students to the full process of conducting quantitative empirical research, from designing studies and collecting data to estimating and interpreting econometric models. Through practical exercises, students learn how to formulate and analyze empirical legal research questions, understand the methods available to answer them, and evaluate their strengths and limitations. By the end of the course, students can design their own quantitative research projects, apply descriptive statistics and OLS regression, interpret empirical results, and critically assess empirical findings in law and policy contexts.
Lecturers: Prof. Pieter Desmet and Dr. Aylin Aydin-Cakir
Program: Elective Course for All Programs of ESL
This course introduces students to the design, logic, and analysis of quantitative empirical research in law. Through a combination of lectures and hands-on tutorials, students learn how different empirical designs (experimental and observational) are used to study legal questions and uncover causal relationships. The course covers the foundations of descriptive and inferential statistics, the strengths and limitations of various research designs, and the creative thinking required to link empirical evidence to legal and policy insights. Students also receive practical training in STATA, enabling them to analyze quantitative data, run regressions, and interpret empirical results. By the end of the course, students can formulate empirical legal research questions, choose appropriate quantitative methods, assess causality, and critically evaluate empirical findings in law and policy.
Lecturers: Dr. Tamar Fischer; Dr. Fiore Geelhoed; Prof. Karin van Wingerde
Programme: Master in Criminology
Scientific research can be used to shape the safety policy, to test its effectiveness and to use interventions in the field of prevention, investigation or prosecution (risk analysis). In the first place, we will look at the different trends in evaluation research and the types of research that can be done within the policy cycle. In the second part of this course, we show how qualitative analysis can be used to uncover the assumptions underlying policy. In the last part of this course, attention is paid to the design and application of (risk) assessment models.
Lecturers: Prof. Jonathan Klick (Theory) and Prof. Pieter Desmet (Practice)
Programme: EMLE
Modern law and economics is unthinkable without empirical tests. This course makes students familiar with the most important aspects of such tests from the design stage to the collection of data to the actual estimate of simple econometric models. It is a “hands on” course including many practical exercises. Students of this course will learn to: Think creatively about research design; Describe the data; Understand OLS regressions; Understand empirical research as it relates to causality.
Lecturer: Prof. Pieter Desmet.
Elective course for all programmes of the School of Law.
Dr. Aylin Aydin-Cakir, Prof. Pieter Desmet, & Dr. Nina Holvast;(in English)
In this minor, students explore empirical research methods from fields like sociology, economics, and psychology and learn how these techniques are applied in legal contexts. In this course they learn:
- Qualitative Methods: Interviews, focus groups, and field research to understand how individuals and communities experience law.
- Quantitative-Experimental Methods: Experimental designs to test the operation of laws and legal institutions.
- Quantitative-Observational Methods: Analyze large datasets to explore trends and causal relationships in legal contexts
Prof. Philip Hans Franses; in Dutch
In this minor, students learn to assess quantitative data within a legal context. They will get basic knowledge of statistics and learn how to calculate probabilities and make predictions.
This first year bachelor course offers a basic introduction to empirical legal studies & sociology of law. Students become familiar with empirical and theoretical findings within sociology of law.
This first year bachelor course offers a first introduction to social scientific research methods used in criminology.
In this second method course the knowledge from Methods and Techniques I is deepened and becomes more applied with regards to the collection and analysis of qualitative and quantitative data.
In this course, the focus is on (the application of) qualitative research methods, such as interviewing and observation. Qualitative data analysis is extensively discussed.