Interdisciplinary Legal Research
Chapter Ninety-Five
Syllabus topic 5, "Research Methods"
Pages 346 to 349 of 543
In one line
Interdisciplinary legal research brings the methods or the knowledge of another discipline to a legal question, and MU requires the reader to produce one alongside their dissertation.
In the wording a student can write in an exam: interdisciplinary legal research studies a legal question with the concepts, methods or findings of another discipline, such as sociology, economics, political science, psychology, criminology, statistics, history or medicine, on the ground that legal rules operate on a world the law itself does not describe; the University of Mumbai requires every regular LL.M. student to submit an interdisciplinary research project in Semester IV, in addition to the dissertation, carrying 100 marks split equally between the project report and the viva, with a minimum of 75 pages.
Why law needs other disciplines
Because a legal rule makes claims about the world. A rule assuming that people will complain within thirty days is making a claim about behaviour, and behaviour is not a legal subject.
Because the standards used to evaluate law are often not legal. Efficiency is economics; deterrence is criminology and psychology; access is partly geography and partly economics.
Because the data a legal survey collects has to be handled, and handling data is statistics, chapter 1040.
And because the questions that matter are rarely bounded by one discipline. Whether legal aid reaches people involves law, sociology, economics and administration at once.
What MU actually requires
Every regular LL.M. Semester IV student submits a dissertation and an interdisciplinary research project.
The project carries 100 marks, of which 50 are for the project report and 50 for the viva voce. Note that the split is even, unlike the dissertation's 80 and 20, so the viva is half the marks.
Its length is a minimum of 75 pages.
Its format guidelines are the same as the dissertation's, and its binding is lighter: the notice says no hard cover binding is needed, only properly stapled or spiral binding.
Its chapter structure is prescribed and differs from the dissertation's in one respect a student must notice: chapter VI is Analysis of data with findings, and chapter VII is Conclusion and Suggestions. The dissertation's chapter VII is Conclusion and Suggestions with no separate data chapter.
Read that difference. MU expects the interdisciplinary project to have data and a chapter analysing it. It is designed to be empirical.
And the topics are not free. The notice says the topics are mentioned in the syllabus for the different groups, so a student takes the project topic from their own group's syllabus.
The four ways a legal study can be interdisciplinary
By borrowing a method. Using a questionnaire, a sampling design or a statistical test, which are the social sciences' methods, chapters 960 to 1040. This is the commonest and is what MU's chapter VI expects.
Interdisciplinary Legal Research
By borrowing a concept. Using deterrence, opportunity cost, social capital or stigma to explain a legal phenomenon.
By borrowing findings. Using another discipline's established results as a premise, for instance what is known about how people respond to notices.
And by joint work, which is rare in a student project and requires a collaborator.
A caution. Borrowing a method obliges the borrower to use it properly. A questionnaire administered badly is not made respectable by being interdisciplinary, chapter 870.
Choosing a project that is genuinely interdisciplinary
The test. Could this be answered from legal sources alone? If yes, it is not interdisciplinary, whatever it is called.
The commonest false example. A study of the law relating to child labour that quotes some statistics from a report. Quoting another discipline is not using it.
The genuine form. A legal question, another discipline's method applied to it, and a finding that neither discipline would have produced alone.
Examples within a student's reach, and each is a legal question needing a non-legal method.
Sociological. Who actually uses a District Legal Services Authority, by sex, occupation and distance travelled, and what that says about section 12's categories.
Economic. What it costs a person to pursue a small claim, counted in fees, travel, lost wages and days, set against the amount claimed.
Psychological or behavioural. Whether a person told of a right at the moment of arrest can act on it, given what is known about comprehension under stress.
Criminological. The composition of the undertrial population of a jail against the offences alleged, which is chapter 700's template.
And educational. Whether students taught a clinical paper practically perform differently from those taught it by lecture, which is Module I's question made empirical.
Its merits and demerits
Merits. It answers questions law cannot answer alone; it produces findings that persuade non-lawyers, including the officials who must act; it opens the empirical field chapter 740 says is unmeasured; and it is what MU requires.
Demerits. The researcher is a beginner in the second discipline and its practitioners will see the errors; borrowed methods used loosely produce confident nonsense; supervision is harder, since a law supervisor may not be able to judge the method; and it takes longer, because two literatures must be read.
The safeguard. Use one borrowed method, use it simply, state it fully, and keep the claim inside what the method supports.
A worked example
A project that satisfies MU's requirements exactly.
The question. What does it cost a person in this taluk to pursue a maintenance claim to its first effective hearing?
Interdisciplinary Legal Research
Why it is interdisciplinary. The question is legal, the method is economic, and the answer is a number no legal source contains.
The method. A schedule administered to a sample of claimants at the court, recording: court fee paid; document and typing charges; travel cost per appearance; days lost from work and the daily wage foregone; number of appearances so far; and any sum paid to anybody.
The data chapter, MU's chapter VI. Tabulation of each component, the total, and the total as a proportion of the sum claimed.
The finding. Suppose the cost to reach a first effective hearing exceeds a third of the annual maintenance claimed.
The suggestions, MU's chapter VII. Costed, addressed to a body that can act: a legal services clinic in the taluk under regulation 3 of the 2011 Regulations to reduce the number of journeys; and the front office under regulation 4 of the 2010 Regulations advertising that court fee is met under regulation 13.
Length. With a legal framework chapter, a literature chapter, a method chapter, the data chapter and the conclusions, 75 pages is comfortable.
And it could not have been written from legal sources alone, which is the test.
Quick revision
Interdisciplinary legal research studies a legal question using another discipline's concepts, methods or findings.
MU requires it: every regular LL.M. Semester IV student submits an interdisciplinary research project as well as the dissertation; 100 marks, 50 report and 50 viva; minimum 75 pages; spiral or stapled binding; topics from the group's own syllabus; and a prescribed chapter structure whose chapter VI is Analysis of data with findings, so it is designed to be empirical.
Four ways to be interdisciplinary: borrow a method, a concept, findings, or work jointly.
The test: could it be answered from legal sources alone? If yes, it is not interdisciplinary. Quoting another discipline is not using it.
Safeguard: one borrowed method, used simply, stated fully, with the claim kept inside what the method supports.
Test yourself
1. State MU's requirements for the interdisciplinary research project. Every regular LL.M. Semester IV student must submit one in addition to the dissertation. It carries 100 marks, 50 for the project report and 50 for the viva voce; it must run to a minimum of 75 pages; it follows the dissertation's format guidelines but needs only spiral or stapled binding; its topic comes from the syllabus for the student's group; and its prescribed chapter structure includes chapter VI, Analysis of data with findings, and chapter VII, Conclusion and Suggestions.
2. What does the prescribed chapter VI tell you about what MU expects? That the project is meant to be empirical. A chapter devoted to the analysis of data with findings presupposes that data has been collected, so a project consisting only of legal analysis does not meet the structure MU prints.
Interdisciplinary Legal Research
3. Give the test for whether a study is genuinely interdisciplinary, and the commonest false example. Ask whether it could be answered from legal sources alone; if it could, it is not interdisciplinary. The commonest false example is a legal study that quotes statistics from somebody else's report, since quoting another discipline is not using its methods or concepts.
4. Name two demerits of interdisciplinary work and the safeguard against them. The researcher is a beginner in the second discipline, so its practitioners will see errors a legal reader cannot; and borrowed methods used loosely produce confident conclusions that are unsupported. The safeguard is to borrow one method, use it simply, state it in full, and confine the claim to what that method can support.
The rest of this subject
These notes are cut from the University's printed syllabus. Open the syllabus itself, or the past papers, for the same subject.