Empirical Studies of Law and Social Change

Scott Cummings of UCLA Law School has an important and very useful field review essay on "Empirical Studies of Law and Social Change" in the Wisconsin Law Review.  One footnote here — I don't mean to sound like one obsessed with slavery and Jim Crow (which of course I am).  But I think the law and social change literture is about (or should be about) how law stands in the way of social change as well as how law can impel it (or be used by those who seek it).  And related in some ways to Cummings — and as long as I'm talking about recent work in law reviews — let me call your attention to Emily Prifogle's Law and Local Activism Uncovering the Civil Rights History of Chambers v. Mississippi, which appeared in the California Law Review.  I hope to say more about Prifogle's piece shortly, because I'm deeply interested in her method — what one might think of as the social history of constitutional law.  This is an important work in framing how "great cases" affect the local community and draw out reactions from that community.