Conference on Empirical Legal Studies (CELS) 2011

Sixth Annual Conference on Empirical Legal Studies to be held at Northwestern Law

Friday, November 4, and Saturday, November 5, 2011

The CELS 2011 conference is sponsored by the Society for Empirical Legal Studies (SELS), The Searle Center on Law, Regulation, and Economic Growth at Northwestern Law, and the American Bar Foundation. The conference features original empirical and experimental legal scholarship by leading scholars from a diverse range of fields.

CELS 2011 Co-Presidents
Bernie Black
Shari Diamond
Emerson Tiller

For More Information
Please e-mail Bernie Black for substantive questions or fee waiver requests, and Derek Gundersen for logistics and registration.

Paper Submission and Review

The paper submission period for CELS 2011 closed on July 12, 2011.

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Conference Registration

To attend the conference, you must both (a) register, and (b) be a member of the Society for Empirical Legal Studies.

Register for the conference by accessing the CELS 2011 Conference page on SSRN. The conference registration fee is $90 ($30 for students), which covers all conference activities including continental breakfast and lunch on Friday and Saturday. There is a separate $75/person charge for the Friday dinner.

To join the Society for Empirical Legal Studies, please go to the membership page hosted by Wiley Blackwell.

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Society for Empirical Legal Studies

The Society for Empirical Legal Studies (SELS) is an international organization of scholars interested in empirical legal studies. The Journal of Empirical Legal Studies (JELS) is the official SELS journal. Every year, SELS sponsors The Conference on Empirical Legal Studies (CELS).

SELS exists to

Encourage and develop empirical and experimental scholarship on legal issues
Stimulate ongoing conversations among scholars in law, economics, political science, criminology, finance, psychology, sociology, health care, and other disciplines
Convene an annual conference of scholars on empirical legal studies

Become a Member of the Society for Empirical Legal Studies
To join the Society for Empirical Legal Studies, please go to the membership page hosted by Wiley Blackwell. You join the Society by subscribing to the Journal of Empirical Legal Studies. Those who subscribe automatically become members of the Society, and the only way to become a member of the Society is by subscribing to the journal. Membership and subscription cost is $65. ($35 for students or $25 for an online only student subscription.)

SELS Board of Directors:

Jennifer Arlen (New York University Law School)
Bernie Black (Northwestern Law)
Shari Diamond (Northwestern Law)
Ted Eisenberg (Cornell Law School)
Valerie Hans (Cornell Law School)
Michael Heise (Cornell Law School)
Dan Ho (Stanford Law School)
Mathew McCubbins (University of Southern California Gould School of Law and Political Science)
Geoffrey Miller (New York University Law School)
Roberta Romano (Yale Law School)
Eric Talley (University of California at Berkeley Boalt Hall Law School)

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Schedule and Papers

A preliminary program, with links to papers, is available on SSRN [accessible by your SSRN username and password].

Conference Schedule

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Information for Presenters, Discussants, Chairs and Poster Presenters

Paper upload deadline: Presenters should upload any revisions to your paper no later than Friday October 21, 2011. That will give discussants two weeks to read the papers.

Presenter and Discussant Time Information

Each paper will be presented in a 40 minute “block”, with 18 minutes for the presenter, 8 minutes for the discussant, and 14 minutes for general audience questions. We will ask session chairs to be (reasonably) rigid about these time limits. After the discussion, the chair will immediately open the floor for questions. Presenters should not seek to respond to the discussant. You will have time to do so only if the general discussion runs out of steam (which we expect to be uncommon).

Presenter and Discussant Slides

Please send your slides to cels2011@law.northwestern.edu no later than Wednesday Nov. 2, at 5:00 p.m. Central time, to have them uploaded in advance. We’ll do what we can for slides sent later than this, but make no promises. There is a 20 MB attachment size limit. You can also bring slides with you on a USB drive, but please have a backup USB drive of a different type available, in case our computers can’t read your drive.

Computers in the conference rooms can display PowerPoint or PDF files. If you want to use another file type, please email cels2011@law.northwestern.edu, and we will see what is doable. We prefer that you not use your own laptop. If you have strong need for this, please let us know in advance, and we will see what is doable.

Whether you send your slides in advance or bring them on a USB drive, please make sure that your slides have been loaded properly well before your panel starts. That way problems can be worked out without slowing down the conference.

Discussant Information

Your discussion should be no more than 8 minutes. Paper presenters have been asked to revise their papers by October 21, 2011; which will give you two weeks to read the papers and prepare your remarks. You will always be able to access the most recent version of the paper from the program from SSRN [after logging in, click on the "discussant list" link on the left hand side of the page].

Chair Information

Please start promptly, end on time, and keep time for each paper per the time limits above. We will provide a kitchen timer and "time remaining" placards, to assist in this. Papers should be presented in the order listed in the program. Each paper should be followed immediately by its discussant and then questions from the audience – do not move from discussant back to presenter for a response.

Please make introductions very short – presenter and paper information will already be in the conference program. Ordinarily, authors will call on audience members for questions. If the author requests your help, you may call on questioners instead.

You may exercise the chair’s prerogative to ask a first question.

Poster Presenter Information

Poster sessions are common in the physical sciences and many social sciences, though not yet in the legal world. Nevertheless, the four prior CELS conferences have included very successful poster sessions. Because the poster session does not conflict with other sessions, posters generally get lots of attention. In addition, because the poster session is held in conjunction with the reception, it also tends to be a lot of fun!

In a typical poster session, participants organize display materials that show the highlights of their project. Some people prepare printed poster boards, while others prepare sheets of paper with a title, abstract, core results, graphs, and charts, and then attach them in a meaningful sequence to a poster board. The idea is to present your project so that the topic, dataset, and main results are immediately identifiable, and the empirical questions and hypotheses guiding your work are noted (perhaps in bullet point form). Ideally, your data will be presented visually through charts and graphs so someone can quickly grasp what you found. Ideas for future work can also be noted. Less (detail, that is) is often more. The poster should be readable from several feet away.

For design ideas, several websites present a variety of ways to present empirical work in a poster format:
Example 1
Example 2

Among the suggestions, these websites recommend using a crisp, clean design; making illustrations simple and bold; conveying only selected key findings rather than the entire results; and converting tables to graphs for easier viewing. Keep our format in mind--a poster on an easel with tripod -- as you think about how to present your work most effectively.

If you would like your graphics/poster printed and mounted on a poster board in advance and delivered to the Law School, please contact Mike Borden at NU Copy Center operated by FedEx Office (fmc3610@fedex.com or 312-503-8995). The usual poster size is 36" x 48", but 48" x 48" is also available. Please inform them that you are attending the CELS conference at Northwestern Law; Northwestern Law will pay for printing and mounting the posters.

Poster files can be designed to the desired poster size with high-resolution images or charts embedded in a PowerPoint slide, but the final file must be delivered for printing and mounting as an exported PDF file. Please email fmc3610@fedex.com if you have any questions. Your file must be received at the NU Copy Center by Tuesday, November 1st at 4:30 p.m. (Central Time).

If you are bringing your presentation on paper and need 36" x 48" foam poster board to mount it, please email cels2011@law.northwestern.edu by Friday, October 28 to let us know, so we can have a sufficient number of poster boards on hand.

When you check in at the conference, please confirm your poster presentation with one of our staff members, who will have further instructions on poster setup (specific location of your poster in the poster session space, how to create your poster if you bring your presentation on paper).

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Hotel Information

Group rates for conference participants have been arranged at the following local hotels. All are an easy walk to Northwestern Law School. To get the conference rate, you must identify yourself as a participant in the Conference on Empirical Legal Studies, and book by the cutoff date below. Hotel space in Chicago is limited at this time of year, so please book your hotel room early. Complimentary internet is offered at each of the following hotels.

Wyndham Chicago Hotel
633 North St. Clair, Chicago, IL 60611, (312) 573-0300
Reservations (phone): (877) 999-3223
Reservations (online): (special link to get conference rate)
Conference Rate: $159.00 per night (regular rate: $260.00-$319.00)
Conference Rate available: November 1-November 8
Reserve by: October 20, 2011

Affinia Chicago Hotel
166 East Superior St., Chicago, IL 60611, (312) 787-6000
Reservations (phone): (866) 233-4642
Reservations (e-mail): reservations@affinia.com Indicate that you are part of the Sixth Annual Conference on Empirical Legal Studies (CELS) group to receive the group rate
Conference Rate: $199.00 (regular rate: $225.00-$370.00)
Conference Rate available: November 1-November 7
Reserve by: October 13, 2011

Omni Chicago Hotel
676 N. Michigan Avenue, Chicago, IL 60611, (312) 944-6664
Reservation (phone): (312) 944-6664
Reservations (online): (special link to get conference rate)
Conference Rate: $249.00 (regular rate: $305.00-$339.00)
Conference Rate available: November 1-November 8
Reserve by: October 17, 2011

Lower Cost Options

Chicago also has some low-priced options. You might check online services, such as www.cheaphotels.com and www.hotwire.com. Hotwire can have especially good deals, but you won’t know what hotel you are at until the last minute.

Attendees have also suggested the following nearby options:

Howard Johnson Inn
720 North Lasalle Street, Chicago, IL 60611 (312) 664-8100
Stay and Save Program (pay in advance, 2-night minimum, non-cancelable)

A number of other hotels in the area also offer discounts to Northwestern guests, visit our hotel information page for additional options.

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