In this short paper, Cass Sunstein and Tom Miles argue that the recent spurt of empirical studies of judicial behavior in the last decade amounts to a new movement that they dub "the New Legal Realism":

A distinguishing feature of the New Legal Realism is the close examination of reported cases in order to understand how judicial personality, understood in various ways, influences legal outcomes, and how legal institutions constrain or unleash these influences. These inquires represent an effort to test the (old-style) realist claims about the indeterminacy of law, and to implement its call for empirical study of how different judges decide cases by responding to the "stimulus" of each case.

I never know what to make of claims about "movements" in law. Such claims often artificially focus our attention on some plausible differences while ignoring many important similarities. Given that, it can be hard to tell if the differences are really significant enough to justify the label. Still, I thought this was a pretty persuasive paper about a useful and interesting methodology.

  By way of full disclosure, I should acknowledge that I wrote a New-Legal-Realist-y paper as a law student: see my first "real" article, Shedding Light on Chevron: An. Empirical Study of the Chevron Doctrine in the U.S. Courts of Appeals, 15 Yale J. Reg. 1 (1998). I guess I grew out of it, unless the Umpire Watch brings me back into the fold.

  Thanks to Legal Theory Blog for the link.