Journal of Empirical Legal Studies最新文献

IF 1.2 2区社会学

Journal of Empirical Legal Studies Pub Date : 2025-04-29 DOI: 10.1111/jels.12412

Ori Katz, Eyal Zamir

{"title":"Law, Justice and Reason-Giving","authors":"Ori Katz, Eyal Zamir","doi":"10.1111/jels.12412","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/jels.12412","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Reason-giving is a hallmark of judicial decision-making. However, many judicial decisions are not accompanied by detailed reasons—or any reasons at all. Judicial reason-giving serves various goals, including constraining judges' discretion. The very engagement in writing and the enhanced accountability that comes with the provision of written reasons are expected to foster more deliberative thinking and stricter adherence to legal norms. Several prior studies have investigated the influence of judicial reason-giving on judges' vulnerability to cognitive and other biases. But none have examined the effect of reason-giving on the inclination to deviate from formal legal rules in cases where there is a notable tension between the legal rules and the equities of the case in question (“hard cases”). This article reports on four novel, pre-registered experiments designed to test this important issue. The experiments also explored (1) the extent to which a precedent where the court deviated from the formal rule in a hard case affects the ruling in a subsequent “easy case” (one that lacks such tension)—and how reason-giving influences this effect, and (2) the extent to which a precedent where the court followed the formal rule in an easy case affects the ruling in a subsequent hard case—and how reason-giving influences this effect. The article discusses the policy implications of the findings and avenues for future research.</p>","PeriodicalId":47187,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Empirical Legal Studies","volume":"22 2","pages":"243-266"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2025-04-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/jels.12412","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143926181","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Hallucination-Free? Assessing the Reliability of Leading AI Legal Research Tools Hallucination-Free吗?评估领先人工智能法律研究工具的可靠性

IF 1.2 2区社会学

Journal of Empirical Legal Studies Pub Date : 2025-04-23 DOI: 10.1111/jels.12413

Varun Magesh, Faiz Surani, Matthew Dahl, Mirac Suzgun, Christopher D. Manning, Daniel E. Ho

{"title":"Hallucination-Free? Assessing the Reliability of Leading AI Legal Research Tools","authors":"Varun Magesh, Faiz Surani, Matthew Dahl, Mirac Suzgun, Christopher D. Manning, Daniel E. Ho","doi":"10.1111/jels.12413","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/jels.12413","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Legal practice has witnessed a sharp rise in products incorporating artificial intelligence (AI). Such tools are designed to assist with a wide range of core legal tasks, from search and summarization of caselaw to document drafting. However, the large language models used in these tools are prone to “hallucinate,” or make up false information, making their use risky in high-stakes domains. Recently, certain legal research providers have touted methods such as retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) as “eliminating” or “avoid[ing]” hallucinations, or guaranteeing “hallucination-free” legal citations. Because of the closed nature of these systems, systematically assessing these claims is challenging. In this article, we design and report on the first preregistered empirical evaluation of AI-driven legal research tools. We demonstrate that the providers' claims are overstated. While hallucinations are reduced relative to general-purpose chatbots (GPT-4), we find that the AI research tools made by LexisNexis (Lexis+ AI) and Thomson Reuters (Westlaw AI-Assisted Research and Ask Practical Law AI) each hallucinate between 17% and 33% of the time. We also document substantial differences between systems in responsiveness and accuracy. Our article makes four key contributions. It is the first to assess and report the performance of RAG-based proprietary legal AI tools. Second, it introduces a comprehensive, preregistered dataset for identifying and understanding vulnerabilities in these systems. Third, it proposes a clear typology for differentiating between hallucinations and accurate legal responses. Last, it provides evidence to inform the responsibilities of legal professionals in supervising and verifying AI outputs, which remains a central open question for the responsible integration of AI into law.</p>","PeriodicalId":47187,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Empirical Legal Studies","volume":"22 2","pages":"216-242"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2025-04-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/jels.12413","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143926188","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Assessing the Conservative Nature of the Supreme Court of Japan via Ideal Point Estimation of Justices 从法官的理想点估计看日本大法院的保守性

IF 1.2 2区社会学

Journal of Empirical Legal Studies Pub Date : 2025-04-07 DOI: 10.1111/jels.12411

Hirofumi Miwa

{"title":"Assessing the Conservative Nature of the Supreme Court of Japan via Ideal Point Estimation of Justices","authors":"Hirofumi Miwa","doi":"10.1111/jels.12411","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/jels.12411","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 <p>Japan is an intriguing case in the literature of judicial independence because of the Liberal Democratic Party's (LDP) long-lasting one-party dominance in government—which, in theory, leads to low independence. Although scholars have found plentiful anecdotal observations implying the LDP's judicial control, quantitative evidence remains scarce. Focusing on the Supreme Court as the first step, this study provides a new dataset on justices' ideal points through an extensive compilation of justices' voting data and application of the dynamic item response theory model. I validate the estimates' interpretability as ideological positions. The results present several novel findings: justices with a career-judge background are relatively conservative; the Chief Justice tends to be particularly conservative; the conservative camp has tended to hold on to a court majority since the 1960s; and the government's partisanship, to some degree, influences appointed justices' positions. These results reinforce scholars' views that Japan's court leans conservatively and aligns with the LDP, with implications for judicial independence in Japan.</p>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":47187,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Empirical Legal Studies","volume":"22 2","pages":"186-215"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2025-04-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143925846","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Perception Pending: What Do Patents Signal to Consumers? 待定认知：专利向消费者发出了什么信号？

IF 1.2 2区社会学

Journal of Empirical Legal Studies Pub Date : 2025-04-03 DOI: 10.1111/jels.12415

Alexander Billy, Neel Sukhatme

{"title":"Perception Pending: What Do Patents Signal to Consumers?","authors":"Alexander Billy, Neel Sukhatme","doi":"10.1111/jels.12415","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/jels.12415","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Patent law encourages inventors to label their products as “patented,” to mark their legal status and potentially secure monetary damages from infringing competitors. We examine whether such labels might have a separate and direct impact on consumers, by affecting how they view patented products and influencing what they purchase. We develop and conduct two experiments to isolate the impact of patent status on consumer behavior. In an online randomized experiment, we demonstrate how increasing the salience of patent status heightens consumers' beliefs that products are innovative and well made. We also reveal consumers' surprisingly sophisticated understanding of the patenting process and what being patented means. Despite this informed perspective, consumers are not more inclined to buy patented products. To determine if these results hold in a real-world setting, we conduct a field experiment at a small retail pharmacy chain. Using scanner data spanning over 4 years, we find no evidence that consumers respond to increased patent salience. Our collective results suggest that while consumers view patented products as more innovative and well made, these positive attributes do not necessarily translate into heightened purchasing behavior. Our research suggests that patent marking might often serve only a legal, rather than a marketing, function. This has implications for patent policy, including the relevance of patent salience in damage analyses and litigation strategies.</p>","PeriodicalId":47187,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Empirical Legal Studies","volume":"22 2","pages":"163-184"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2025-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/jels.12415","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143925911","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Correction to “Paying for Performance? Attorneys' Fees in Fraud Class Actions” 更正“按业绩付费？”欺诈集体诉讼中的律师费

IF 1.2 2区社会学

Journal of Empirical Legal Studies Pub Date : 2025-04-03 DOI: 10.1111/jels.12416

引用次数: 0

Molecular Diagnostic Patenting After Mayo v. Prometheus: An Empirical Analysis 梅奥诉普罗米修斯案后的分子诊断专利：实证分析

IF 1.2 2区社会学

Journal of Empirical Legal Studies Pub Date : 2025-01-14 DOI: 10.1111/jels.12409

Colleen V. Chien, Jenna Clark, Arti K. Rai

{"title":"Molecular Diagnostic Patenting After Mayo v. Prometheus: An Empirical Analysis","authors":"Colleen V. Chien, Jenna Clark, Arti K. Rai","doi":"10.1111/jels.12409","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/jels.12409","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Since the United States Supreme Court's 2012 decision in Mayo v. Prometheus announced a new legal test for patent-eligible subject matter, policymakers, and scholars have vigorously debated the decision's impact on molecular diagnostics innovation. Molecular diagnostics serve as the cornerstone of personalized medicine and its promise of treatments with fewer side effects and better outcomes for patients. This article contributes to the presently thin evidence base on the impact of Mayo by using data on patent applications, examinations, and grants from 2010 to 2019 to comprehensively trace the effects of the test and subsequent related developments. Using descriptive data as well as a difference-in-difference (DID) design we evaluate the extent to which the decision was followed by one of three expected outcomes: a decline in patent quantity (“retrenchment”); increase in patent prosecution “toughness”; and applicant “adaptation” with respect to submitted claims. We find substantial support for our toughness and adaptation hypotheses, but not our retrenchment hypothesis: molecular diagnostic patenting did not decline in aggregate, though there is some evidence of a decline, relative to a control, in the number of diagnostic patent applications and grants associated with small, U.S.-based firms. These results suggest that molecular diagnostic patents are harder to get but they are still being applied for and granted, with their narrowed scope making them less likely to block follow on innovation.</p>","PeriodicalId":47187,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Empirical Legal Studies","volume":"22 2","pages":"144-162"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2025-01-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/jels.12409","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143926138","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

The Impact of Judicial Leadership on Consensus Formation: Evidence From the Supreme Court of Norway 司法领导对共识形成的影响：来自挪威最高法院的证据

IF 1.2 2区社会学

Journal of Empirical Legal Studies Pub Date : 2025-01-08 DOI: 10.1111/jels.12408

Henrik Litleré Bentsen, Jon Kåre Skiple, Mark Jonathan McKenzie, Gunnar Grendstad

{"title":"The Impact of Judicial Leadership on Consensus Formation: Evidence From the Supreme Court of Norway","authors":"Henrik Litleré Bentsen, Jon Kåre Skiple, Mark Jonathan McKenzie, Gunnar Grendstad","doi":"10.1111/jels.12408","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/jels.12408","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Which judicial leaders are more successful in achieving consensus? This article examines the impact of the leadership of presiding justices on consensus formation on the Norwegian Supreme Court where cases are distributed randomly to two parallel decisional panels. We hypothesize that presiding justices with certain characteristics (e.g., gender and chief justice), when in charge of the decision-making process, are more willing and better able to forge consensus, which could lead to greater respect for courts and the rule of law. We account for a variety of characteristics of the justices, as well as several conditions under which the cases were decided. The results confirm that both chief justices and female justices, when operating as the presiding justice of the panel, are significantly more likely to steer the case towards a unanimous decision as compared to their fellow justices. Legal academics serving as presiding justices had no discernable impact on consensus formation. The results provide evidence outside the American context that chief justices and women justices have the ability to achieve greater consensus. As such, diversity and appointments have consequences for judicial leadership and for consensus formation on a court.</p>","PeriodicalId":47187,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Empirical Legal Studies","volume":"22 1","pages":"114-129"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2025-01-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/jels.12408","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143249040","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Introducing a New Corpus of Definitive M&A Agreements, 2000–2020 引入2000-2020年新的最终并购协议语料库

IF 1.2 2区社会学

Journal of Empirical Legal Studies Pub Date : 2024-12-29 DOI: 10.1111/jels.12410

Peter Adelson, Matthew Jennejohn, Julian Nyarko, Eric Talley

引用次数: 0

Killing as Capital: Perverse Effects of Truce Negotiations on Gang Violence in El Salvador 杀戮为资本：萨尔瓦多帮派暴力停战谈判的反常影响

IF 1.2 2区社会学

Journal of Empirical Legal Studies Pub Date : 2024-12-26 DOI: 10.1111/jels.12407

Cree Jones, Preston Lloyd

{"title":"Killing as Capital: Perverse Effects of Truce Negotiations on Gang Violence in El Salvador","authors":"Cree Jones, Preston Lloyd","doi":"10.1111/jels.12407","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/jels.12407","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 <p>In March 2012, the government of El Salvador brokered a truce between MS-13 and Barrio 18, the two largest and most notorious gangs in El Salvador. The truce was designed to decrease homicides in exchange for more lenient treatment of incarcerated gang leaders. Despite early, promising results, the truce was short-lived. From May 2013 to February 2015, the government walked back its concessions under the truce. Homicides increased steadily during the rescission period and exponentially in the wake of full revocation. Economic theory suggests negotiating with gangs may achieve short-term gains, but may also cause long-term losses, particularly when the government reneges: once negotiations are on the table, gangs may use killing to increase their political capital and induce the government to re-enter negotiations and make greater concessions. Using Salvadoran crime data, we deploy a difference-in-differences model to estimate the effect of the truce on homicides. We estimate the truce resulted in 1130 fewer homicides during its implementation and 551 fewer homicides during its piecemeal revocation. However, we also estimate 2250 more homicides occurred after full revocation, a perverse net effect of 569 more lives lost compared to what would have happened had the truce not been negotiated. These findings demonstrate negotiating with gangs may be an effective means to curb gang violence, but, if negotiations result in an unstable truce, they also introduce a perverse incentive structure that may result in long-term harms that exceed short-term gains.</p>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":47187,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Empirical Legal Studies","volume":"22 1","pages":"90-113"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2024-12-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143253364","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Patents Used in Patent Office Rejections as Indicators of Value 专利局驳回中作为价值指标的专利

IF 1.2 2区社会学

Journal of Empirical Legal Studies Pub Date : 2024-12-20 DOI: 10.1111/jels.12404

Christopher A. Cotropia, David L. Schwartz

{"title":"Patents Used in Patent Office Rejections as Indicators of Value","authors":"Christopher A. Cotropia, David L. Schwartz","doi":"10.1111/jels.12404","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/jels.12404","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This paper introduces a novel approach to measure a patent's economic value by examining whether the patent's disclosure leads to rejection of another pending US patent application. This approach considers the use of the patent by the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) in office action rejections on the grounds of novelty or obviousness, as well as its citation as an X or Y reference in a European Patent Office (EPO) search report, which provides analogous information. Unlike conventional citation metrics widely employed by economists, the novel metric is arguably more closely tied to private value, as it is centered on the examiner's rejection of another patent application based on the patent in question. As this metric is not directly influenced by potential strategic behavior by patent lawyers or patent applicants, it is more directly tied to private value. This study evaluates how patents used in novelty and obviousness rejections, and comparable EPO information, correspond to common measures of private value—specifically patent renewal, the assertion of a patent in litigation, the number of independent patent claims, and classification in multiple technological subject matters. We examine rejection data over a defined time period for US patents issued from 1999 to 2007 and then link value data to these patents. A similar analysis is also conducted for EPO search reports. Our findings reveal that rejection uses, as well as X and Y EPO search citations, independently exhibit positive correlations with all of these value measurements. Moreover, when information from both the USPTO and EPO concerning a given patent is combined, further insights about that patent's value are obtained. We also find that rejection uses provide unique insights into additional measures of private value such as the patent being listed in the Orange Book or as a Standard Essential Patent. Accordingly, these rejection use metrics provide another independent tool for evaluating a patent's value.</p>","PeriodicalId":47187,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Empirical Legal Studies","volume":"22 1","pages":"76-89"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2024-12-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/jels.12404","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143252961","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0