Foreword

Abstract

Around the Eisenberg dinner table for the past couple of decades or so, conversations have consistently turned to data analysis. My father, Ted, the empirical legal studies guru; my sister, Kate, the epidemiologist; her husband, Aaron, the biostatistician; and my brother, Tom, the economics student, all seemed to become energized when we could switch from the more mundane matters of daily life to what everyone really wanted to talk about—data sources, data gaps, linear regressions, Stata, and other people's misinterpretations of data. My mother and I, the only nonstatisticians (other than my sister's children, Dylan and Ollie, who are known, however, to wear child-sized Stata T-shirts), might roll our eyes at each other, but really we were all on board with the importance of data, and with the empirical legal studies movement. It is not surprising that the majority of our family has gone down the statistical analysis road as well because, as so many have noted since my dad's passing, his enthusiasm was contagious. Of course, we all knew that where much of the magic happened was the Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, or JELS. My mother recently filled me in on some of the details of the JELS backstory: the idea was batted around casually for years, both at home and in the halls of Cornell Law School. She felt it would be brilliant to call it the Journal of Empirical Legal Opinion—or JELO—but the idea did not “gel.” Finally, in 2004, it came to fruition. My father was not only a very proud grandfather of Dylan and Ollie, but also proud to be known as the grandfather of empirical legal studies. If he could have lavished JELS with gifts the way he did Dylan and Ollie, he would have. My father had numerous professional accomplishments and passions, but JELS was the pinnacle. It was apparent he saw his colleagues at Cornell—some of whom he had known since 1981 or earlier—as an extension of his beloved family. My mother and I sat down to list the people who were most dear to him, but realized there are too many, particularly since, in recent years, the reach of his warmth and enthusiasm and the span of his cherished colleagues had transcended disciplines and borders, to Israel, to India, to Brazil, and beyond. I personally joined the Cornell Law School family in 2009 as a 1 L and had the opportunity to work with my father not just as a daughter, but as a colleague. I know one is not supposed to like law school, but I did. The three additional years I spent in Ithaca now seem more precious than ever, as does the fact that I was able to share the stage with my dad upon graduating in 2012. I did not anticipate embarking upon my legal career without him, but I like to think that, like JELS, my siblings, my brother-in-law, and I are a part of his legacy. And like JELS, we have benefited from his incisive editorial skills. We will carry with us forever some extremely specific mantras—“Write short sentences,” “Don't try to sound smart,” “Nothing tells a better story than a simple graph,” and “It's harder work to write less than more” come to mind. JELS represents the desire to contribute evidence-based reasoning to the pursuit of scholarship and justice. It is one of my father's proudest legacies. So, too, is a family full of statisticians. On behalf of my family, I would like to thank the JELS editorial board for their hard work on this great endeavor and this issue specifically, and to thank contributors and readers for their appreciation of this scholarly accomplishment.