We introduce the inaugural issue of the Journal of Legal Metrics. Our aim is to solicit and publish the efforts of scholars whose work demonstrates the explanatory power of numbers and statistics in the legal context. Data challenges the status quo, requiring reconciliation of subjective beliefs with objective measures, and encouraging reexamination of former truths and assumptions. We hope not necessarily to answer the question: “What does the data say?” but rather: “Where is the data in the first place?” Too often commentary surrounding the law is based in opinion, rhetoric, and subjectivity; the foundation of scholarship here is that of numbers and statistics.
