Quantitative Legal History

Legal historians seldom use statistics, but this is a missed opportunity. Quantitative methods are particularly helpful in understand core legal history issues, including the effect of legal change and the influence of multiple factors on legislation, judicial decisionmaking, and citizen behavior. Recent work by Gavin Wright, Paul Mahoney, and Michele Landis Dauber shows how tables, graphs, and regression analysis can be woven into persuasive historical narrative and analysis. Collaboration between legal historians and quantitative social scientists also provides an untapped avenue to enrich the field.