Journal of Empirical Legal Studies (JELS) fills a gap in the legal and social science literature that has often left scholars, lawyers, and policymakers without basic knowledge of legal systems. Always timely and provocative, studies published in JELS have been covered in leading news outlets such as the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Economist, Forbes Magazine, the Financial Times, and USA Today.

TopHighlights

• A Broken System: The Persistent Patterns of Reversals of Death Sentences in the United States, Andrew Gelman et al., Columbia University
  
• Forty Years of Civil Jury Verdicts, Seth A. Seabury, RAND Institute for Civil Justice
  
• The Vanishing Trial: An Examination of Trials and Related Matters in Federal and State Courts, Marc Galanter, University of Wisconsin Law School
  
• Attorney Fees in Class Action Settlements: An Empirical Study, Theodore Eisenberg, Cornell Law School, and Geoffrey P. Miller, NYU Law School
  
• The Determinants of Professional Fees in Large Bankruptcy Reorganization Cases, Lynn M. LoPucki and Joseph W. Doherty, UCLA Law School
  
• ADR and the "Vanishing Trial": The Growth and Impact of "Alternative Dispute Resolution", Thomas J. Stipanowich, CPR Institute for Dispute Resolution
  
• Does Relationship Banking Matter? Japanese Bank-Borrower Ties in Good Times and Bad, Yoshiro Miwa, University of Tokyo, and J. Mark Ramseyer, Harvard Law School
  
• Have Federal Judges Changed their Sentencing Practices? The Shaky Empirical Foundations of the Feeney Amendment, Max Schanzenbach, Northwestern University School of Law