REU Site: Digital Legal Research Lab

University Of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln NE

Investigators

Abstract

This project is funded through the Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) Sites program in the Directorate for Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences (SBE). It has both scientific and societal benefits and integrates research with education. Mastering concepts central to the study of law and science enables a deeper exploration of the historically contingent and ongoing relationships between law and society; however, few undergraduates are trained to engage in rigorous analysis of the law. The overall goal of the Digital Legal Research Lab REU Site is to equip a diverse cohort of undergraduate researchers with the analytical and technical skills needed to engage in digital legal inquiry and generate new insights in the study of law and science. This foundational training will prepare students to develop their own analytical questions, disseminate research findings, establish distinct research identities, and craft competitive applications for funding opportunities and graduate programs. This REU Site will engage a diverse group of students who contribute unique perspectives to digital legal research. This program will diversify the fields of law and science and train talented undergraduates to advance critical inquiry into past and present trends in crime, violence, and policing; legal decision making; legal mobilization and conceptions of justice; and litigation and the legal profession. The intensive ten-week program will support eight undergraduate students per year and will include an orientation to the varied methodologies and tools needed to effectively analyze historical and ongoing legal practices and structures, an introduction to mixed-methods research design, and analysis of primary source materials from digital and physical repositories. Specifically, students will analyze freedom suits and habeas petitions comprising a vital case study of freedom-making between 1770 and 1924 to demonstrate the widespread legal mobilization of marginalized petitioners who challenged exploitation during the long nineteenth century, and whose largely unexamined and unpublished stories are central to the American legal canon. In addition to assessing trends in marginalized people’s legal mobilization against various forms of institutional and interpersonal confinement, researchers will participate in the innovative restructuring of archival legal data that shifts away from traditional forms of indexing focused on case party names and dates to a system that prioritizes demographic and relational data across parties and petition types. Using a mixed methods approach, researchers will offer novel insights relevant to family law, federal Indian law, immigration law, labor law, morals policing, and slavery. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.