Welcome to Ratio Juris

Ratio Juris is dedicated to compiling and discussing empirical and mathematical scholarship examining legal decisionmaking. Our goal is to create a resource that will engage both law and political science scholars and that will –- hopefully -– lead to better communication between those two groups.

The Ratio Juris team consists of Jim Chen (Jurisdynamics Network maestro), Alfred Brophy (a legal historian and law professor at the University of Alabama), Stefanie Lindquist (a political scientist and law professor at Vanderbilt University), Chad Oldfather (a law professor at Marquette University), and Lori Ringhand (a law professor at the University of Kentucky).

Ratio Juris is being developed in conjunction with a symposium volume of Constitutional Commentary focusing on empirical work involving the recently ended Rehnquist Court. Our hope is that contributors to that volume, including Dan Farber, Frank Cross, Jason Czarnezki, and William Ford, will be regular Ratio Juris guest bloggers. Indeed, symposium participant Tom Smith will take part as a guest blogger in Ratio Juris at its inception.

A tremendous amount of empirical data about the courts, particularly the Supreme Court of the United States, is available today. Ratio Juris hopes to encourage legal scholars to consider that data when writing about judicial decisionmaking.