Social Sciences & Humanities

Law and legal studies research: societies, funders, case-law data and journals

Law is organised for research less by one body than by overlapping communities. The Association of American Law Schools hosts more than 100 free sections for faculty, from Contracts, Constitutional Law, Legal History and Taxation to Clinical Legal Education. The social-scientific study of law sits with the Law and Society Association, which lists 59 Collaborative Research Networks, and international law with the American Society of International Law, which offers nearly 40 interest groups. Empirical work is published in journals such as the Journal of Empirical Legal Studies (established 2004, Wiley-Blackwell with Cornell Law School), Law & Society Review (founded 1966, now Cambridge University Press) and Law & Social Inquiry from the American Bar Foundation.

Funding is narrower than the field. The National Science Foundation's Law & Science programme (PD 21-128Y) funds social scientific studies of law and law-like rule systems; its page lists no open due dates and says it is waiting for a new publication, so check it before planning a proposal. The National Institute of Justice organises its topics around Corrections, Courts, Crime Prevention, Law Enforcement, Victims of Crime and others.

Primary law is the data. PACER holds more than a billion federal court documents at $0.10 a page, which is why the Free Law Project's CourtListener and RECAP Archive matter to researchers. The Legal Information Institute (1992), govinfo, the Law Library of Congress (founded 1832) and the Free Access to Law Movement supply statutes, regulations and foreign law. Citation follows the Bluebook (22nd edition, May 2025) in the United States and ECLI for European case law. SSRN, started in 1994, is the main preprint server for legal scholarship. The sub-fields below each cover their own datasets and regulators; the pages here cover research practice, not legal advice.

New to the field? What is Law & Legal Studies? →

Reviewed 5 November 2026 by CASRAI Editorial Board

Sources

NSF Law & Science(read 5 November 2026)
AALS sections(read 5 November 2026)
LSA Collaborative Research Networks(read 5 November 2026)
ASIL interest groups(read 5 November 2026)
NIJ topics(read 5 November 2026)
SSRN (Wikipedia)(read 5 November 2026)
Law and Society Association(read 5 November 2026)
Journal of Empirical Legal Studies (Wikipedia)(read 5 November 2026)
Free Law Project(read 5 November 2026)
govinfo(read 5 November 2026)
Law Library of Congress (Wikipedia)(read 5 November 2026)
Legal Information Institute (Wikipedia)(read 5 November 2026)
Law & Society Review (Wikipedia)(read 5 November 2026)
The Bluebook (Wikipedia)(read 5 November 2026)
ECLI (Wikipedia)(read 5 November 2026)
American Bar Foundation(read 5 November 2026)
HeinOnline (Wikipedia)(read 5 November 2026)
Free Access to Law Movement (Wikipedia)(read 5 November 2026)
PACER(read 5 November 2026)
OECD Fields of Science and Technology (Wikipedia)(read 5 November 2026)

Field at a glance

Societies

AALS sections: The Association of American Law Schools hosts more than 100 free sections for law faculty, many with discussion groups, newsletters and works-in-progress programmes.Website ↗
Law and Society Association Collaborative Research Networks: Lists 59 current CRNs, such as Law and Social Movements and Transitional Justice, that organise sessions and cross-national projects.Website ↗
ASIL interest groups: The American Society of International Law offers nearly 40 substantive, demographic and geographic interest groups, including Human Rights and Space Law.Website ↗

Journals

Journal of Empirical Legal Studies: Established 2004; published by Wiley-Blackwell with Cornell Law School; interdisciplinary empirical research on legal topics.Website ↗
Law & Society Review: Founded 1966 by the Law and Society Association; Cambridge University Press publishes it since 2024; indexed in the Social Sciences Citation Index.Website ↗
Law & Social Inquiry: Journal run by the American Bar Foundation, which lists it among its research outputs.Website ↗

Funders and programmes

NSF Law & Science (LS) programme: SBE programme (PD 21-128Y) for social scientific studies of law; the page lists no due dates and awaits a new publication.Website ↗
National Institute of Justice research topics: NIJ topic areas include Corrections, Courts, Crime Prevention, Drugs and Crime, Law Enforcement and Victims of Crime.Website ↗ · Our guide →
American Bar Foundation: Independent research institute founded in 1952 by the American Bar Association; runs fellowship programmes and an Access to Justice Research Initiative.Website ↗

Archives, facilities and data

PACER: Federal court records service with more than 1 billion documents; $0.10 a page, capped at $3.00 per document, fees waived in a quarter at $30 or less.Website ↗
Free Law Project: CourtListener and RECAP: Nonprofit behind CourtListener (opinions, dockets, oral arguments) and RECAP, which adds documents bought on PACER to a free archive.Website ↗
Legal Information Institute (Cornell): Founded 1992; free access to the U.S. Code, Supreme Court opinions, the Code of Federal Regulations and the Wex legal dictionary.Website ↗
Free Access to Law Movement: International association promoting free online legal information, begun in 1992; its Declaration was adopted in October 2002.Website ↗
Law Library of Congress: Created in 1832; about 2.9 million volumes; handles foreign, comparative and international law research and keeps the Global Legal Monitor.Website ↗
govinfo: U.S. Government Publishing Office site giving free access to official publications of all three branches, including the Federal Register and U.S. Code.Website ↗

Standards and formats

The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation: Dominant U.S. legal citation style, compiled by four law reviews; the 22nd edition was published in May 2025.Website ↗
European Case Law Identifier (ECLI): Five-part identifier for court decisions with uniform metadata; established by Council Conclusions of 22 December 2010.Website ↗

Preprints and indexes

SSRN: Repository for preliminary scholarship started in 1994 by Michael Jensen and Wayne Marr; owned by Elsevier since May 2016.Website ↗ · Our guide →
HeinOnline: Commercial database launched in 2000 holding over 192 million image-based pages of law reviews, statutes, treaties and constitutions.Website ↗ · Our guide →

60 pages across 10 topic areas

Frontier AI Safety & Governance

EU AI Act Article 70: France, Germany, Spain, and Ireland ComparedComparison
How Spain (AESIA), Germany (KI-MIG/Bundesnetzagentur), France (DGCCRF-led panel), and Ireland (15-regulator model) actually implemented EU AI Act Arti…
EU AI Act vs California SB 53: Frontier Model Transparency Requirements ComparedComparison
How the EU AI Act's general-purpose AI provisions and California's SB 53 (Transparency in Frontier Artificial Intelligence Act) differ on who is cover…
EU AI Act vs NIST AI RMF vs ISO/IEC 42001Comparison
The EU AI Act, the NIST AI RMF, and ISO/IEC 42001 are not three versions of the same thing: one is binding law, one is voluntary US guidance, and one…
GPAI Systemic Risk: The EU AI Act Term Explained
What systemic risk means under the EU AI Act, the Article 51 classification test and 10^25 FLOPs presumption, and the Article 55 obligations it trigge…
HUDERIA vs. the EU AI Act Fundamental Rights Impact Assessment (Article 27)Comparison
Europe now has two human-rights-facing AI assessment instruments, and compliance teams keep asking which one they are actually on the hook for. HUDERI…
India's AI Governance Guidelines Explained
MeitY says it is “not regulating AI.” Its November 2025 Guidelines are voluntary: seven sutras adapted from the RBI's FREE-AI report, six pillars acro…
Insurer AI Governance: NAIC Model Bulletin vs. Colorado SB 21-169 vs. NY DFS Circular Letter No. 7Comparison
Insurance is the one US sector where AI governance is already being examined rather than merely announced — and it is being done three incompatible wa…
Italy's Law 132/2025: A National AI Statute Inside the EU AI Act
Regulation (EU) 2024/1689 is directly applicable in every member state, so what is left for a national AI law to do? Italy's Law 23 September 2025 n.…
Singapore's Model AI Governance Framework for Agentic AI
Singapore's IMDA and AI Verify Foundation published a voluntary Model AI Governance Framework for Agentic AI (v1.5, May–June 2026) built around four p…
Singapore's Model AI Governance Framework for Generative AI
IMDA and the AI Verify Foundation published the Model AI Governance Framework for Generative AI on 19 June 2024 — a voluntary, nine-dimension framewor…
The EU AI Act GPAI Code of Practice: What It Is and Who Signed It
What the EU AI Act's GPAI Code of Practice actually requires — its three chapters, its presumption-of-conformity mechanism under Article 53(4), and wh…
The EU AI Act's Open-Source Exemption: What Article 53 Actually Carves Out
Article 53(2) of the EU AI Act waives two of four baseline GPAI provider obligations for genuinely open-source models with public weights, architectur…
The Middle East and Africa: AI Strategies, Not AI Laws
Search “AI regulation in Saudi Arabia” or “AI law in Kenya” and you will find governance trackers that colour these countries…
The Texas Responsible AI Governance Act (TRAIGA): What It Requires
Texas's TRAIGA (HB 149) takes effect January 1, 2026. Unlike Colorado's law, it bans specific AI uses by intent rather than regulating high-stakes dec…
The UN's AI Governance Track: The Global Dialogue and the Scientific Panel
UNGA resolution A/RES/79/325 (26 August 2025) created two distinct things that are constantly conflated: the Global Dialogue on AI Governance, a 193-m…

Research Methods & Statistics

BAILII: British and Irish Legal Information Institute Explained
BAILII is a free database of British and Irish case law and legislation. What it covers, how neutral citations work, and how to cite a judgment.…
Crime Data: Rates, Formulas & Statistics
A guide to crime data analysis: standardized rate formulas per 100,000, NIBRS and NCVS frameworks, worked arithmetic, and reproducible statistical scr…
Criminology vs Criminal Justice: How the Fields DifferComparison
Criminology studies why crime happens; criminal justice studies how police, courts and corrections respond. How they differ on methods, data, funders,…
Dark Figure of Crime: Formulas, Rates & Stats
Guide to the dark figure of crime: statistical formulas, victimization reporting rates, worked arithmetic examples, and calculations in Excel, R, and…
National Center for State Courts (NCSC): What It Is and What Researchers Use It For
What the National Center for State Courts does, what its Court Statistics Project publishes, and how to use and cite state court caseload data.…
National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS): Design, Data and Limits for Researchers
How the National Crime Victimization Survey is designed, what it covers, how to read its rates, and where researchers get NCVS data.…
Shepardize: How Legal Citators Track Precedent
A guide to Shepardizing legal citations, interpreting negative treatment signals, and comparing citator workflows across LexisNexis and Westlaw.…
Westlaw vs Lexis: Legal Research ComparisonComparison
Westlaw (Thomson Reuters) and Lexis (RELX/LexisNexis) compared on citators (KeyCite vs Shepard's), taxonomies, secondary sources, and litigation analy…
What Is Criminal Justice Research? Areas, Funding, and Career Paths
Criminal justice research is the applied, evidence-focused study of policing, courts and corrections. Here is how it differs from criminology, who fun…
What Is Criminology? Research Areas, Funding, and Career Paths
A guide to criminology: what it studies, major subfields, the federal and private funding landscape, research methods, and career paths.…
What Is Legal Studies? Research Areas, Funding, and Career Paths
Legal studies is the academic study of law as a body of rules, institutions and social practice. This guide explains its subfields, methods, scholarly…

Scholarly Publishing

American Jurisprudence: Legal Encyclopedia Guide
A research guide to American Jurisprudence 2d (Am Jur 2d): coverage across 400+ legal topics, Westlaw search steps, and comparison with national treat…
American Society of International Law (ASIL) Guide
What ASIL is, what it publishes (AJIL, AJIL Unbound, ILM), which resources suit which task, and what is stated as free or members-only.…
arXiv vs. SSRN: Which Repository Fits Your Field?Comparison
arXiv (independent nonprofit as of July 2026, physics/math/CS/quant fields) and SSRN (Elsevier-owned since 2016, social science/law/economics working…
AustLII: Legal Research Platform & Database Guide
A comprehensive researcher guide to the Australasian Legal Information Institute (AustLII), covering database scope, Sino search operators, and LawCit…
CourtListener Guide: Legal Search & APIs
A guide to CourtListener and Free Law Project: searching case law, accessing the RECAP PACER archive, bulk data downloads, and REST APIs for legal res…
ECLI: European Case Law Identifier Guide
A complete guide to the European Case Law Identifier (ECLI), covering its 5-part structure, CJEU retroactive indexing, search workflows, and metadata…
Journal of Criminology: Scope, Metrics & Guide
Journal of Criminology guide: Review SAGE and ANZSOC scope, SSCI and Scopus indexing, ScholarOne submission, peer review norms, and author compliance…
Law and Society Association
A research guide to the Law and Society Association (LSA): interdisciplinary sociolegal scope, Law & Society Review publishing, and Collaborative Rese…
Law Review Rankings: Guide to W&L Journal Metrics
A research guide to law review rankings: exploring W&L Law Journal Rankings methodology, Combined Score formulas, Impact Factors, and submission strat…
RECAP Archive
A research guide to the RECAP Archive and RECAP extension: crowdsourcing PACER federal court documents, full-text docket search on CourtListener, and…
Restatement of the Law: ALI Common Law Guide
A guide to the American Law Institute's Restatements of the Law: common-law synthesis, black-letter rules, comments, illustrations, and database acces…

Research Integrity & Compliance

45 CFR 46 and the Common Rule: What Each Subpart Covers
45 CFR 46 is the HHS human-subjects regulation with five subparts (A-E). The Common Rule is specifically Subpart A. This guide maps every subpart to i…
45 CFR 46 vs. 21 CFR 50: How the Common Rule and FDA's Human-Subjects Regulation DifferComparison
45 CFR 46 (the HHS Common Rule) applies because research is federally funded or conducted; 21 CFR 50 applies because a study involves an FDA-regulated…
CRISPR Germline Editing Legal Status by Country (US, UK, China)
A country-by-country survey of the current legal and regulatory status of heritable human germline gene editing in the US, UK, and China, plus WHO's i…
EU AI Act: Obligations and Exemptions for Research Organizations
What the EU AI Act's Article 2(6) research exemption actually covers, when it stops applying, and what research administration offices need to track a…
The Declaration of Helsinki After the 2024 Revision
What the WMA's October 2024 revision of the Declaration of Helsinki actually changed, and what it means for research protocols and informed consent fo…
The NIST AI Risk Management Framework: What It Means for Research Institutions
A plain explanation of NIST AI RMF 1.0 — its four core functions, why research institutions are building policy around it, and how its Measure functio…

Scholarly Writing

Bluebook Abbreviations: Legal Citation Rules
A guide to Bluebook legal abbreviations: Table T6 case name terms, Table T1 reporters, T10 geographic units, and Rule 10.2 dual-regime citation mechan…
Bluebook Case Citation
A scholarly guide to Bluebook case citation under Rule 10: standard full citation templates, reporter volumes, pinpoint pages, short forms, and exampl…
Bluebook Short Form Citation: Rules and Formats
A complete guide to Bluebook short form citations under Rule 4, covering Id., case short forms, supra, statutory citations, and common formatting pitf…
Bluebook Statute Citation: Rules and Format Guide
A complete guide to Bluebook statute citation under Rule 12, covering the U.S. Code, state statutory codes, session laws, named acts, and short forms.…
Cell Journal Citation Style: Guide & Examples
Cell journal citation style guide: learn current numeric citation rules, in-text examples, reference list templates, and STAR Methods dataset formatti…
Scholastica Law Review Submissions
A comprehensive operational guide for legal researchers submitting manuscripts through the Scholastica law review pool, covering file formats, expedit…

Technology Transfer & Innovation

How to Conduct a Prior Art Search: Databases, Strategy, and When to Go Professional
How to conduct a prior art search: which patent databases to use (USPTO Patent Public Search, Google Patents, Espacenet, WIPO PATENTSCOPE), how to sea…
Patent Law Requirements: The Four Tests an Invention Must Pass
The four legal requirements a patentable invention must meet -- eligible subject matter, novelty, non-obviousness, and enablement/written description…
Patent Prosecution vs. Patent Litigation: Differences in Timeline, Cost, and ExpertiseComparison
How patent prosecution (obtaining a patent from the USPTO) differs from patent litigation (enforcing or challenging one in court) -- timelines, attorn…
PCT Patent Application: The International Filing Route Explained
What a PCT (Patent Cooperation Treaty) application is, its timeline from priority date through 30/31-month national phase entry, how it fits a U.S. pr…
Trade Secrets vs. PatentsComparison
Patents trade public disclosure for a 20-year exclusionary right; trade secrets trade no disclosure for indefinite but narrower protection. A side-by-…

Grants Management & Research Funding

Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society: What It Is and How Its Fellowship Works
Harvard's Berkman Klein Center explained: history, eligibility, non-employee fellowship terms and the application steps, as described on the official…
National Institute of Justice (NIJ): Mission, Funding and How to Apply
What the National Institute of Justice funds, who is eligible, and how NIJ applications move through SAM.gov, Grants.gov and JustGrants.…

Research Information & Identifiers

Lumen Database: What It Is, Who Runs It and How Researchers Use It
The Lumen database archives takedown notices shared by online providers. Learn who runs it, how to access it, and its research limits.…
Sabinet: South Africa's Legal, News and African Research Information Service
Sabinet is the South African information service behind Sabinet African Journals (journals.co.za), the Government Gazette collections and Sabinet Disc…

CRediT & Authorship

Law Review and Legal-Scholarship Authorship Norms: Why Single Authorship Still Dominates
Why the single-authored article remains the default in student-edited law reviews even as most fields shift toward multi-author teams, and the genuine…

Research Tools & Software

PACER API: Federal Court Data Access Guide
A practical guide for researchers using the official PACER APIs: authenticating via CSO Auth, querying the PACER Case Locator (PCL) REST API, parsing…