Trial by Numbers

Description

A significant problem within the legal profession is that many of the lawyers litigating cases and the judges deciding them have only a limited understanding of how to properly interpret empirical evidence.

Trial by Numbers provides an easy way for members of the legal profession to acquire a basic understanding of the most common methods that serve as the building blocks for empirical evidence in academic articles, policy briefs, and expert witness reports. Adam Chilton and Kyle Rozema take a different approach to other introductory books on empirical methods, omitting the formulas and equations found in other books, and instead focusing on explaining the intuition and logic of common empirical methods. The work also exclusively use examples that are relevant to law school and legal practice.

About the authors:

Adam Chilton is a Professor of Law and the Walter Mander Research Scholar at the University of Chicago Law School. He currently serves as an editor of the Journal of Law and Economics. Professor Chilton's research focuses on using empirical methods to study international law, comparative law, and the American legal profession. Kyle Rozema is an Associate Professor and an Associate Editor of the American Law and Economics Review. His research interests are in understanding how legal institutions affect inequality.

Reviews

"Empirical methods are not gobbledygook! Lawyers and judges need to understand them. This guide for the perplexed is amazing - it's wonderfully clear, it's beautifully written, and it's one-stop shopping." - Cass R. Sunstein, Harvard University, and author of How to Interpret the Constitution

"This is the best introductory book on empirical methods for the lay reader I have seen. It uses fascinating examples from the real world of litigation, avoiding jargon and math while clearly explaining technical terms and the fundamental intuitions behind regression analysis and other statistical techniques. It should be on the desk of every lawyer and judge, and anyone else who is interested in empirical methods." - Eric Posner, University of Chicago Law School

Table of contents

Chapter 1: Introduction
Chapter 2: Probability
Chapter 2: Data and Statistics
Chapter 3: Causal Inference and Experiments
Chapter 4: Regression
Chapter 5: Difference-in-Differences
Chapter 6: Regression Discontinuity
Chapter 7: Instrumental Variables
Glossary