LSA EARLY CAREER WORKSHOP 2011

The Law and Society Association is pleased to announce the third Early Career Workshop to be held May 31-June 1st, immediately preceding the 2011 Annual Meeting of the Law and Society Association in San Francisco, California, USA. We invite applications from scholars in the early stage of their careers (first three years of initial appointment or in a post doc) in any field whose scholarly interests include sociolegal studies. The Association strongly encourages applications from scholars who have not participated in LSA meetings before, in addition to scholars who have participated one or many times before.

The Early Career Workshop encourages new faculty to move their research and writing toward law-and-society topics, and to further develop their awareness of the field and the scholars working in those areas. The Workshop is structured to focus on methodological approaches to law-related areas of inquiry.  The workshop will also highlight the LSA's Collaborative Research Networks (CRNs)—of which there are more than 30—to introduce participants to networks where they may find opportunities and intellectual allies.

The workshop will invite participants to consider the kinds of sociolegal research projects members of the Law & Society Association are involved in.  For those trained as lawyers, social science may seem a bit daunting.  For those trained in one social science, other methodologies from other fields may seem foreign.  But for all concerned, seeing how these various methods are used by sociolegal scholars will be edifying and productive.  

The sessions will be animated by intellectually broad questions such as: 

·         What are the intellectual approaches and analytical trends that shape the pursuit of certain kinds of sociolegal inquiries?

·         If discussions of methodology in law are usually empirical, what does a critical inquiry into methodology of sociolegal research entail? 

Workshops will also offer insight into particular empirical research methodologies and will allow participants to learn about methods that they may not have tried before:

·         formal modeling and quantitative approaches -- focusing on countable and quantifiable elements of legal phenomena

·         ethnographic/qualitative methods -- focusing on experience-based methods of observation and interviewing

·         historical/textual analysis -- focusing on the analysis of documents, from archives to cases

In addition, participants will be asked to submit a current working paper or project description in advance of the workshop and will be given individual feedback from faculty in individual meetings (with one or two faculty) during the workshop. The workshop will be structured to allow for informal discussion and networking over meals and during breaks.   This year’s planning committee is chaired by Ben Fleury-Steiner (University of Delaware) and includes Hiroshi Fukurai (UC Santa Cruz), Rosemary Gartner (University of Toronto), Lisa Hajjar (UC Santa Barbara), Alexandra Huneeus (University of Wisconsin),Michelle McKinley (University of Oregon), and Mary Rose (University of Texas, Austin).   Twenty scholars will be selected to participate in the Workshop.

Twenty scholars will be selected to participate in the Workshop. Applications must be received by January 21, 2011. Applications should contain the following four items:

1.       cover sheet, which can be downloaded HERE and completed in MS Word,

2.       current CV,

3.       1-2 page letter describing research and teaching interests, and

4.       2 page description of a current research project.

These documents should be combined into a single file, in the order listed above, named for the applicant as follows: “LASTNAME_FIRSTNAME_ECW.file-type”  File type should be .doc, .wpd, or .pdf. Send the file as an attachment in an email to ECW@lawandsociety.org.

The program will begin at 4:30 p.m. on Tuesday, May 31 and will end at 6:00 p.m. on Wednesday, June 1. For those not reimbursed by their home institution, LSA will offer up to $250 for participants within North America, and $450 for participants from outside North America toward the costs of travel and accommodations. If you have questions about the submission format, please get in touch with Lissa Ganter, ganter@lawandsociety.org, tel. 413-545-4617.