Foreword

• Published date: 01 March 2015
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/jels.12062
• Author: Annie Eisenberg
• Date: 01 March 2015

Foreword

Around the Eisenberg dinner table for the past couple of decades or so, conversations have

consistently turned to data analysis. My father, Ted, the empirical legal studies guru; my

sister, Kate, the epidemiologist; her husband, Aaron, the biostatistician; and my brother,

Tom, the economics student, all seemed to become energized when we could switch from

the more mundane matters of daily life to what everyone really wanted to talk about—data

sources, data gaps, linear regressions, Stata, and other people’s misinterpretations of data.

My mother and I, the only nonstatisticians (other than my sister’s children, Dylan and Ollie,

who are known, however, to wear child-sized Stata T-shirts), might roll our eyes at each

other, but really we were all on board with the importance of data, and with the empirical

legal studies movement. It is not surprising that the majority of our family has gone down

the statistical analysis road as well because, as so many have noted since my dad’s passing,

his enthusiasm was contagious.

Of course, we all knew that where much of the magic happened was the Journal of

Empirical Legal Studies,orJELS. My mother recently filled me in on some of the details of the

JELS backstory: the idea was batted around casually for years, both at home and in the halls

of Cornell Law School. She felt it would be brilliant to call it the Journal of Empirical Legal

Opinion—or JELO—but the idea did not “gel.” Finally, in 2004, it came to fruition. My father

was not only a very proud grandfather of Dylan and Ollie, but also proud to be known as the

grandfather of empirical legal studies. If he could have lavished JELS with gifts the way he

did Dylan and Ollie, he would have. My father had numerous professional accomplish-

ments and passions, but JELS was the pinnacle.

It was apparent he saw his colleagues at Cornell—some of whom he had known since

1981 or earlier—as an extension of his beloved family. My mother and I sat down to list the

people who were most dear to him, but realized there are too many, particularly since, in

recent years, the reach of his warmth and enthusiasm and the span of his cherished

colleagues had transcended disciplines and borders, to Israel, to India, to Brazil, and

beyond.

I personally joined the Cornell Law School family in 2009 as a 1 L and had the

opportunity to work with my father not just as a daughter, but as a colleague. I know one is

not supposed to like law school, but I did. The three additional years I spent in Ithaca now

seem more precious than ever, as does the fact that I was able to share the stage with my dad

upon graduating in 2012. I did not anticipate embarking upon my legal career without him,

but I like to think that, like JELS, my siblings, my brother-in-law, and I are a part of his

legacy. And like JELS, we have benefited from his incisive editorial skills. We will carry with

us forever some extremely specific mantras—“Write short sentences,” “Don’t try to sound

smart,” “Nothing tells a better story than a simple graph,” and “It’s harder work to write less

than more” come to mind.

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Journal of Empirical Legal Studies

Volume 12, Issue 1, 2–3, March 2015

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