Foreword

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/jels.12094
• Author: Eric Talley,Anne Joseph O'Connell
• Date: 01 December 2015
• Published date: 01 December 2015

Foreword

Anne Joseph O’Connell and Eric Talley

We are pleased to present the latest annual conference issue of JELS. The editors and

reviewers of JELS chose eight papers presented at the Ninth Annual Conference on Empir-

ical Legal Studies, held at UC Berkeley School of Law on November 8–9, 2014, for publica-

tion in this issue. Following tradition, the Ninth CELS consisted of papers chosen from

peer referees; out of 365 papers submitted, 117 were selected for presentation.

Thanks are due to many people for their contributions to the Ninth CELS. We

received generous financial and administrative support from Berkeley Law, without

which the conference would not have been possible. We benefitted from the comments

of dozens of reviewers in selecting the papers to be presented. We also were fortunate

to have the considerable advice and assistance of the other members of the SELS board:

David Abrams, Jennifer Arlen, Adam Badawi, Bernie Black, Dawn Chutkow (ex officio),

Valerie Hans, Michael Heise, Dan Ho, Rebecca Hollander-Blumoff, Pauline Kim, Mat

McCubbins, Tom Miles, Geoffrey Miller, Ted Ruger, and Tess Wilkinson-Ryan. Most

important, the presenting authors and discussants created vibrant intellectual exchange

over two beautiful days in northern California.

The articles published below represent the wide scope of empirical legal scholar-

ship that characterized the Ninth CELS. They range from public law (federal judicial

appointments) to private law (director liability protection), and span the spectrum in

between (leases and executory contracts in bankruptcy as well as mediation practices).

They examine domestic issues (proactive policing as well as juvenile delinquency), inter-

national issues (Chinese legal tools to protect energy security), and their combination

(domestic and foreign taxation). They are an important piece of the latest CELS, which

has now clearly become the preeminent conduit for empirical legal scholarship in the

world.

2014 Co-Presidents of the Society for Empirical Legal Studies

601

Journal of Empirical Legal Studies

Volume 12, Issue 4, 601, December 2015