On Experiments in Empirical Legal Research

Abstract

In this paper we discuss some strengths, stumbling blocks, common mistakes, and controversial issues that can be important when conducting experiments in the legal domain. To this end, we first briefly introduce the experimental method and note some of its strengths when used in legal research projects. We also briefly discuss important differences between laboratory and field experiments. We then examine some issues that we think are important for researchers with no or little experience in conducting empirical legal research. The list of issues discussed, although certainly not exhaustive, is intended to guide novice researchers who want to learn about experiments either because they are considering adopting this research method in their own research projects or because they want to be able to give an informed opinion about the method when reading about it in research publications or hearing about it in research presentations. We discuss these issues because we assume that empirical research, including experimental research, may complement normative legal research. Thus, we do not argue that empirical research, in general, or experimental research, in particular, should replace normative “black letter law” but, rather, we think there are good reasons why solid empirical research may be conducive to a thorough legal science. Furthermore, although we focus on experiments in this contribution, we do not suggest that experiments are the most important empirical research method or the most promising method for the legal domain. We merely argue that experimental research is an important empirical method that deserves the attention of legal scholars and practitioners. In particular, we propose in this paper that experiments may provide fundamental insight into what is driving human behavior and what is going on in society. This insight can be important, partly because this insight may help move the legal domain to go beyond what people (including legal scholars) believe or do not believe to be true. In this way, findings from experimental studies can help to better understand core elements of the functioning of law.1 We also note explicitly that we do not frown upon qualitative2 methods, or on other quantitative3 or mixed-method4 research projects, quite the contrary, but here we concentrate on one particular research method, experiments, and discuss some strengths and weaknesses of this method when used in the legal domain. Let us turn to these strengths and potential stumbling blocks of experiments in empirical legal studies.