The Netherlands Academy for Empirical Legal Studies embodies and builds a national community of enthusiastic and driven scholars with an interest in empirical legal research, across all Dutch universities and various disciplines. The ELS Academy aims to provide this research community with the resources needed to do empirical legal research. Facilitated by the sector plan, the Netherlands has seen a rise in empirical legal scholars over the past few years. New research groups have been created with often young scholars who are the driving force for empirical legal research at their respective schools. The ELS Academy focuses on bringing them together in a national community. This strengthens collaboration between law schools as well as interdisciplinary collaboration, as scholars from other disciplines, in particular the social and behavioral sciences, are part of this community.
Latest events
Lunch & Learns are informal, interactive sessions where we discuss a controversial statement relating to an ELS-themed topic. It is an opportunity to share your opinion and experiences with regard to doing empirical legal research and to learn from peers. This Lunch & Learn will be on the topic of ‘From Legal Scholar to Empirical Legal Scholar’.
Among those wanting to engage in empirical legal research, two broad profiles can be identified. The first is a traditional legal scholar needing to learn about empirical methods. The second is a social scientist needing to learn about pressing legal issues and relevant research questions. What are the challenges faced by each of these types of scholars? Are there risks involved when one engages in non-traditional research, and if so, which? Niek Strohmaier will introduce his perspective on the matter as a ‘psychologist turned lawyer’. Gitta Veldt will offer her perspective as a traditional legal scholar diving into the world of empirical research. Expect an interactive session with plenty of discussion among all the attendees.
This event is part of the ELS lab meetings organized by Empirical Legal Studies Lab @Leiden. Are you looking to learn more about empirical methods and/or engage in lively discussions on ELS? Join the upcoming ELS@Leiden lab meetings! Ranging from the informal Lunch & Learn to more in-depth paper discussions, the ELS lab meetings cover a wide range of empirical research methods and ELS-related topics. We offer a possibility to learn about each other’s research and experience, test out ideas and receive feedback on work in progress. You’re welcome to join, regardless of your degree of experience with ELS.
On the 29th of October (13-14:30 hrs) ERI research cluster of Utrecht University hosts a seminar on quantitative and qualitative analysis of case law. This session looks at the analysis of case law from two methodological perspectives. First, an approach to quantitative analysis of Dutch case law using SPSS as a means of statistical analysis. Second, a discourse analysis as a means of qualitatively studying case law, using transcripts of court hearings to obtain information about judicial decision making. Sign up by sending an email through this link
Peter van der Zwan will discuss longitudinal research settings in the first online-offline hybrid session of the series Empirical Methods in Legal Research at Leiden Law School. Longitudinal research settings refer to panel datasets, that is, datasets with repeated observations for the same individual, firm or country. For example, individuals can be followed for various years to retrieve information about their perceptions of the legal environment in their country, and the developments over time. In his talk, Van der Zwan will present various methods for analyzing panel (or longitudinal) data with legal applications.
Peter van der Zwan studied Econometrics and obtained his PhD at Erasmus University Rotterdam (School of Economics). He has been affiliated with Leiden Law School (Department of Business Studies) since 2017. He has published mainly quantitative studies in the area of entrepreneurship. You can find these studies on this link. You can also read van der Zwan’s contributions on data analysis in the Leiden Law Methods Portal.
The working language of this session is English. Please register with Asmaa Khadim by 25 October 2021 (a.n.khadim@law.leidenuniv.nl). You will receive an email confirmation with more details about the venue in Leiden or the link needed to access the session.
Inventarisatie van collectieve schaderegelingen: welke lessen kunnen we trekken?
Joodse oorlogstegoeden, seksueel misbruik in de jeugdzorg, chroom-6, de Toeslagenaffaire, Mijnbouwschade Groningen. Het zijn enkele voorbeelden waar collectieve schade opgetreden is. Vervolgens maakte de Nederlandse overheid regelingen voor slachtoffers. Veel van deze regelingen schieten hun doel voorbij. Ze zijn niet goed doordacht en onvoldoende uitgewerkt. Ook geven ze lang niet altijd alle slachtoffers voldoende erkenning voor wat hen is overkomen. Ten slotte lijkt de overheid elke keer weer het wiel opnieuw uit te vinden. Dit zijn uitkomsten van een recent onderzoek van Christiaan Ruppert waarin hij een overzicht geeft en een vergelijking maakt van 44 regelingen voor collectieve schade. De studie levert naast conclusies ook aandachtspunten op voor als in de toekomst collectieve schade optreedt.
Dr. Christiaan Ruppert (1954) is rechtshistoricus en gastonderzoeker bij het NSCR. Hij is in 2017 aan onze faculteit gepromoveerd op het proefschrift Eindelijk restitutie. De totstandkoming van Nederlandse akkoorden over joodse oorlogstegoeden (1997-2000)
Na de presentatie is er tijd voor een Q&A en discussie. Mocht je de meeting willen bijwonen, gelieve dan aan te melden via e-mail bij:
Anniek van der Schuijt
j.m.vander.schuijt@vu.nl
On the 11 November 2021 (12-13:30 hrs.), the ERI research cluster of Utrecht University hosts a session on the art of interviewing, focusing on the phase of scheduling and conducting interviews. The art of interviewing is more than just asking questions, the key is listening and re-iterating your questions through probing. This seminar will give you an insight into the techniques of listening and probing during an interview through personal anecdotes. Sign up by sending an email through this link.
Work in Progress sessions involve presentations of work in progress. This can be at any stage of the research process, from the design to writing the actual paper. It is in particular a nice opportunity to receive feedback on empirical ideas and get suggestions on how to improve the methodology. The topic of this Work in Progress session is the biasing effect of character evidence in legal decision making and procedural justice.
Psychological research has shown that important (moral) judgments and decisions are affected by our evaluations of a protagonist’s moral character. Once we have formed an opinion of someone’s character (consciously or not), these character evaluations can bias our subsequent sense making. In a legal context, it has been shown that important judgments about for example causality and foreseeability can (erroneously) be affected by perceptions of the moral character of a defendant. In this session, Niek Strohmaier and Sofia de Jong will present the research design of their new study that aims to shed further light on the matter. One of the central questions of this paper is whether the introduction of character evidence can bias perceptions of procedural justice in such a way that introducing incriminating character evidence in a legal proceeding is seen as just when the defendant is seen as morally bad, but unjust when the defendant is perceived as morally good. The goal of this session is (1) to introduce attendees to the research topic and methods, and (2) to receive feedback on the design of the studies.
This event is part of the ELS lab meetings organized by Empirical Legal Studies Lab @Leiden. Are you looking to learn more about empirical methods and/or engage in lively discussions on ELS? Join the upcoming ELS@Leiden lab meetings! Ranging from the informal Lunch & Learn to more in-depth paper discussions, the ELS lab meetings cover a wide range of empirical research methods and ELS-related topics. We offer a possibility to learn about each other’s research and experience, test out ideas and receive feedback on work in progress. You’re welcome to join, regardless of your degree of experience with ELS.
Helen Pluut (Department of Business Studies) will discuss diary studies as an example of multilevel research designs in an online-offline hybrid session of the series Empirical Methods in Legal Research.
Multilevel analysis applies to any research design where data from participants are organized at more than one level, such as students nested in classrooms, researchers nested in project teams, and insolvency practitioners nested in districts. Also, when the same information is repeatedly collected over time, the data are of a multilevel nature. Daily diaries are an example of this. In her talk, Pluut will discuss various ways of researching daily life and how to analyze such data.
Law intersects with almost every aspect of daily life. Legislators hope to change everyday behavior in such a way that societies, markets, and environments are safe. It may be relevant for legal scholars to study what people do in their everyday lives and how they respond to rules. Researching daily life can help to unravel some of the behavioral mechanisms at play.
Helen Pluut studied Organisation Studies and obtained her PhD at Tilburg University (Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences). She has been affiliated with Leiden Law School since 2016 and is head of the Empirical Legal Studies Lab at this faculty. She has published mainly survey studies in the area of organisational psychology. You can find her publications on her personal profile page.
The working language of this session is English. Please register with Asmaa Khadim by 16 November 2021 (a.n.khadim@law.leidenuniv.nl), and indicate whether you plan to attend online or in-person. You will receive an email confirmation with link needed to access the online session.
Journal Clubs are sessions in which we discuss empirical legal articles, focusing on the methodology used in the paper and the lessons that can be learned. In this Journal Club, we will discuss the vignette study methodology as performed by Shosha Wiznitzer in her book “Defensieve dokters? Een juridisch-empirisch onderzoek naar de invloed van het medisch aansprakelijkheidsrecht op het professionele handelen van zorgverleners“. As part of her dissertation, Shosha conducted legal-empirical research on the behaviour of healthcare providers, in the light of medical liability law. Gaining inspiration from the vignette studies used by Shosha, we discuss the method and its (possible) applications in different fields of law.
Paper: Shosha N.P. Wiznitzer (2021) Defensieve dokters? Een juridisch-empirisch onderzoek naar de invloed van het medisch aansprakelijkheidsrecht op het professionele handelen van zorgverleners (Boomjuridisch, ISBN: 9789462909571).
This event is part of the ELS lab meetings organized by Empirical Legal Studies Lab @Leiden. Are you looking to learn more about empirical methods and/or engage in lively discussions on ELS? Join the upcoming ELS@Leiden lab meetings! Ranging from the informal Lunch & Learn to more in-depth paper discussions, the ELS lab meetings cover a wide range of empirical research methods and ELS-related topics. We offer a possibility to learn about each other’s research and experience, test out ideas and receive feedback on work in progress. You’re welcome to join, regardless of your degree of experience with ELS.