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Elizabeth Mertz

Elizabeth Mertz headshot

Research Professor

Joint appointment

John and Rylla Bosshard Professor of Law, University of Wisconsin

Education

Ph.D., Anthropology, Duke University; J.D., Northwestern University School of Law

Bio

Elizabeth Mertz is a legal anthropologist who examines legal language in the United States, with a special focus on law school education. She studies law schools as sites for training incipient…

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Research focus

Language and law, legal education, interdisciplinary translation, family law. Research focuses on the intersection of law and language, combining linguistic, anthropological, and legal perspectives. Empirical research at the ABF has centered on legal education. The first study, which was also funded by the Spencer Foundation, provided the most extensive observational data available to date on first-year law school teaching. The current project, funded by the ABF and the Law School Admission Council, examines the post-tenure experiences of law professors. Other research has addressed the process by which law translates the social world around it in a number of additional settings.


Projects

Is It Fair?  Law Professors’ Perceptions of Tenure
Latest finding: Apr 2, 2012, with Katherine Barnes, University of Arizona, James E. Rogers College of Law
This paper presents initial data from a major empirical study of U.S. law professors conducted under the auspices of the American Bar Foundation with additional funding from the Law School Admission…
After Tenure:  Senior Status in the Legal Academy
Latest finding: Sep 15, 2011, with Katherine Barnes , Wamucii Njogu
This is the first national study examining the post-tenure experiences of law professors in the United States. Tenured law professors shape many aspects of the institutional settings within law…
The New Legal Realism
Latest finding: Jul 30, 2009, with University of Wisconsin Institute for Legal Studies, Emory University School of Law
Lawyers and law professors frequently draw on social science, and there are many social scientists who devote their careers to studying legal institutions and processes. Yet despite their apparent…

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Publications

“Is It Fair? Law Professors’ Perceptions of Tenure”
Journal of Legal Education
“Comparative Anthropology of Law”
Comparative Law and Society
“Semiotics”
Theory in Social and Cultural Anthropology, Sage

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Presentations

A New Legal Realism for the 21st Century
May 2012 with H. Klug
Research on Law School Education
May 2012
Research Methods for the Study of Law School Education
May 2012

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Professional Service & Recognition

  • Selected as 2010-2011 Fellow in Princeton University's Program in Law and Public Affairs
  • Co-Winner, Herbert Jacob Book Prize, Law & Society Association:  The Language of Law School:  Learning to "Think Like a Lawyer," Oxford University Press
  • Co-Organizer, International Research Network on Legal Education, Law & Society Association
  • Member, Editorial Board, Law & Society Review
  • Member, Carnegie Legal Education Reform Project Working Group
  • Member, Association of American Law Schools Committee on Research
  • Member, Editorial Board, Language and Law Book Series, Oxford University Press
  • Editor,  PoLAR: Political and Legal Anthropology Review
  • Member, Ad Hoc Committee on the Annual Meeting, Law & Society Association
  • Chair, Law and Society Association Nominations Committee
  • Organizer, Association of American Law Schools Committee on Professional Development  pilot program training law professors in qualitative empirical methods
  • Member, Editorial Board, Emerging Legal Education Book Series, Ashgate Press
  • Member, Editorial Board, Language and Law Book Series, Oxford University Press

 

 


Links

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