Law for non-lawyers wanting to conduct empirical research in law

by caroline hunter ~ May 20, 2009

Liverpool Law School is home to the ESRC Researcher Development Initiative (RDI) workshop programme Building Capacity in Empirical Socio Legal Research (ESLR). One of the issues which has emerged for the non-lawyers who are taking part in the programme is the availability of some form of introductory law course. I am not aware of anything that would be particularly suitable, but would be very interested if you have information about what is available already.But it also raises broader questions about what would be a suitable course in any event for e.g. economists, sociologists and the like who are interested in focusing on empirical work in law. What would be suitable content for such a course – is it knowledge about legal institutions or legal methods? Is there a need for substantive legal knowledge, if so how could a short course ever cover what might be needed? Could the legal academic community come up with something that would be appropriate or is it better to encourage non-lawyers to work alongside lawyers who have the necessary substantive knowledge?

I don’t have a fixed view on this, but whether you are a legal or a non-legal academic would be very interested to find out your views.

Posted in Law for non-lawyers

One Response to “Law for non-lawyers wanting to conduct empirical research in law”

  1. liz oliver Says:

    June 2nd, 2009 at 2:51 pm

    Thanks Caroline
    I think there is a gap there. But what’s the best way to fill it? Should we be training interdisciplinary individuals or interdisciplinary teams? Some of the established providers of training in social research methods offer tailored training for teams of researchers – I wonder whether this would be a good way to go?

    I hope participants on the Liverpool RDI Programme will share their thoughts.

    Liz

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