The use of empirical legal research in the undergraduate curriculum

Legal education and empirical research

• The impact of ‘empirical facts’ on legal scholarship and legal research training – article by Kylie Burns and Terry Hutchinson (Griffith University) in The Law Teacher 43(2):153-178, July 2009

Project latest: full report now available – download (Word document, 12 pages, 95KB) | project findings presented at Learning in Law Annual Conference 10 – slides embedded below

During 2009 the Nuffield Foundation and UKCLE funded a small scale research project into the use of empirical legal research in the undergraduate law curriculum, led by Caroline Hunter (University of York).

The 2006 Nuffield Inquiry report Law in the real world: improving our understanding of how law works identified a lack of capacity in university law schools to conduct empirical legal research. A number of reasons were canvassed for this, including the historical domination of law schools by theoretical and doctrinal based research and the constraints of the professionally influenced curriculum: “Those studying law are not only focused on professional legal careers but they lack broader training. With limited research skills, law graduates considering academic careers naturally gravitate toward what they know – doctrinal topics and issues. There is thus an almost inevitable pattern of self replication.” The report concluded that there was a need to support initiatives to address the needs of potential legal empirical researchers at all stages of their careers, including at the undergraduate level.

In fact, there is little data about the extent of the use of empirical research in the undergraduate law curriculum. In order to try to address this lack of knowledge the Nuffield Foundation, with support from UKCLE, funded a further small project to gather information on current practices. The research was conducted through an online questionnaire which sought information on modules in the undergraduate curriculum where empirical research was taught or encountered. The questionnaire was followed by a one-day seminar, attended by 19 participants from a range of different UK law schools, and other related institutions.

The research sought to gather data on:

1. Whether undergraduates are being taught skills that would enable them to either carry out or critique empirical work.
2. Whether they are actually carrying out empirical projects of their own.
3. Whether empirical work figured in other ways in teaching and assessment.

It was not intended to map where empirical research is and is not being used, but rather to engage with those who have included it in the curriculum in order to be able to identify the range of practice and disseminate examples of interesting and innovative practices to others who may be interested in incorporating empirical research into their teaching.

Summary of findings:

• training in empirical research methods could be found in research methods and law type courses, in dissertation training or within a substantive module
• socio-legal modules/sociology of law modules were more likely to include empirical research methods, as were clinical modules
• examples identified include Family Law modules and an assessment involving students evaluating the arguments contained in a number of academic papers
• empirical research in undergraduates may be encouraged by simplifying ethical procedures, learning from other subject areas, drawing from a wide range of texts, providing summer research opportunities or offering work shadowing opportunities

The research indicates there are a number of barriers to introducing empirical legal research into the undergraduate curriculum.These include:

• resistance from other faculty members
• resistance from students, particularly to unknown forms of assessment
• lack of suitable textbooks

Nonetheless the survey and seminar revealed a range of interesting practice which does engage undergraduate law students with empirical legal research, both in compulsory modules such as Advanced Legal Research and Law Reform run at Leeds University, and optional modules such as those outlined at the seminar by Bronwen Morgan and Sylvie Bacquet from Bristol and Westminster universities. In addition, responses to the survey indicated that it is also possible to stimulate this interest from projects and research experience carried out as extra-curricular activities, and opportunities to develop this should not be missed.

The final report concludes that

While it is unlikely that in the undergraduate law curriculum there will be room for detailed training in empirical methods, there is certainly room for critical exposure. That exposure should start in the first year in order that students see it as the ‘norm’ to become critical consumers of empirical research about law throughout their degree. For those who then wish to take this further, the examples provided indicate what can be done to foster and encourage students to engage with and in empirical research

Undoubtedly there are further examples which the research did not uncover. The report is also available via a blog on the Legal Empirical Research Support Net (LERSNet) website. The blog invites further participation in the debate as to how to introduce undergraduate law students to empirical legal research and for participants to add further examples. Readers are invited to join the debate.

Last Modified: 4 June 2010