Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- INTRODUCTION: INNOVATION IN LEGAL THINKING
- PART 1 PRINCIPLES
- PART 2 METHODS
- 7 MATHEMATICAL MODELING
- 8 CONFRONTING UNCERTAINTY: BASIC PROBABILITY THEORY
- 9 ADVANCED PROBABILITY: DISTRIBUTIONS AS THE SHAPE OF RANDOMNESS
- 10 HOW TO PRICE UNCERTAINTY: FINANCE
- 11 FINANCE AND PROBABILITY: OPTIONS AND DERIVATIVES
- 12 USING SPREADSHEETS
- 13 STATISTICS
- 14 CONCLUSION: IMPORTING METHODOLOGICAL INNOVATIONS
- APPENDIX A MEINHARD V. SALMON 249 N.Y. 458 (1928)
- APPENDIX B GLOSSARY
- APPENDIX C MATHEMATICA NOTEBOOKS
- Index
13 - STATISTICS
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 July 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- INTRODUCTION: INNOVATION IN LEGAL THINKING
- PART 1 PRINCIPLES
- PART 2 METHODS
- 7 MATHEMATICAL MODELING
- 8 CONFRONTING UNCERTAINTY: BASIC PROBABILITY THEORY
- 9 ADVANCED PROBABILITY: DISTRIBUTIONS AS THE SHAPE OF RANDOMNESS
- 10 HOW TO PRICE UNCERTAINTY: FINANCE
- 11 FINANCE AND PROBABILITY: OPTIONS AND DERIVATIVES
- 12 USING SPREADSHEETS
- 13 STATISTICS
- 14 CONCLUSION: IMPORTING METHODOLOGICAL INNOVATIONS
- APPENDIX A MEINHARD V. SALMON 249 N.Y. 458 (1928)
- APPENDIX B GLOSSARY
- APPENDIX C MATHEMATICA NOTEBOOKS
- Index
Summary
Statistical analysis probably conjures nightmares about matrix algebra. This chapter will avoid any reference to math. The goal here is to present statistics as a tool of contemporary reasoning and argument, without which legal thinkers cannot apply their training, vocation, or profession. Statistics is routinely used at trials and is used in a large portion of legal scholarship. A legal thinker — lawyer, legislator, law professor, or judge — cannot function without an understanding of statistics.
A subsidiary goal of this chapter is to show that statistics does not deserve the aura of quantitative inapproachability that it has in the legal community. Ubiquitous user-friendly software and powerful computers have turned statistics into a method of building facts into argument that is easy to deploy and is approachable to everyone, regardless of quantitative background.
Section A discusses how statistical methods are used in legal thinking. The focus is on assisting arguments about interpretation and rule making, rather than on establishing facts for the purpose of fact-finding at trials. Fact-finding uses statistical analysis directly and through experts, so a layman's guide is not necessary. Section C introduces the fundamental ideas of statistics. The concepts of the average and standard deviation enable the formation of expectations about occurrences of the data. The idea of distributions explains in greater detail how the outcomes are dispersed. Section D introduces empirical research by the use of statistical tests. Statistical tests are the tools used to construct arguments from the data.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Principles and Methods of Law and EconomicsEnhancing Normative Analysis, pp. 283 - 314Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2005