Introduction
Part I: Surveying Empirical Legal Research
1. The Art, Craft, and Science of Policing
2. Crime and Criminals
3. Criminal Process and Prosecution
4. The Crime-Preventive Impact of Penal Sanctions
5. Contracts and Corporations
6. Financial Markets
7. Consumer Protection
8. Bankruptcy and Insolvency
9. Regulating the Professions
10. Personal Injury Litigation
11. Claiming Behavior as Legal Mobilization
12. Families
13. Labor and Employment Laws
14. Housing and Property
15. Human Rights Instruments
16. Constitutions
17. Social Security and Social Welfare
18. Occupational Safety and Health
19. Environmental Regulation
20. Administrative Justice
21. Access to Civil Justice
22. Judicial Recruitment, Training, and Careers
23. Trial Courts and Adjudication
24. Appellate Courts
25. Dispute Resolution
26. Lay Decision-Makers in the Legal Process
27. Evidence Law
28. Civil Procedure and Courts
29. Collective Actions
30. Law and Courts’ Impact on Development and Democratization
31. How Does International Law Work?
32. Lawyers and Other Legal Service Providers
33. Legal Pluralism
34. Public Images and Understandings of Courts
35. Legal Education and the Legal Academy
Part II: Doing and Using Empirical Legal Research
36. The (Nearly) Forgotten Early Empirical Legal Research
37. Quantitative Approaches to Empirical Legal Research
38. Qualitative Approaches to Empirical Legal Research
39. The Need for Multi-Method Approaches in Empirical Legal Research
40. Legal Theory and Empirical Research
41. Empirical Legal Research and Policy-making
42. The Place of Empirical Legal Research in the Law School Curriculum
43. Empirical Legal Training in the U.S. Academy
Index

The empirical study of law, legal systems and legal institutions is widely viewed as one of the most exciting and important intellectual developments in the modern history of legal research. Motivated by a conviction that legal phenomena can and should be understood not only in normative terms but also as social practices of political, economic and ethical significance, empirical legal researchers have used quantitative and qualitative methods to illuminate many aspects of law's meaning, operation and impact. In the 43 chapters of The Oxford Handbook of Empirical Legal Research leading scholars provide accessible and original discussions of the history, aims and methods of empirical research about law, as well as its achievements and potential. The Handbook has three parts. The first deals with the development and institutional context of empirical legal research. The second - and largest - part consists of critical accounts of empirical research on many aspects of the legal world - on criminal law, civil law, public law, regulatory law and international law; on lawyers, judicial institutions, legal procedures and evidence; and on legal pluralism and the public understanding of law. The third part introduces readers to the methods of empirical research, and its place in the law school curriculum. ( Source: VitalSource. Com)