Our Philosophy
The ESCLL operates as a collaborative learning environment where students develop research skills through meaningful contribution to empirical legal scholarship. We reject the model of research assistants as data entry workers. Instead, we build capacity through systematic training, metacognitive learning approaches, and genuine intellectual engagement with methodological challenges.
How We Work
Research assistants participate in:
- Weekly training sessions on legal document analysis and coding methodology
- Collaborative problem-solving of measurement and classification challenges
- Development of coding protocols through iterative refinement
- Documentation of uncertainty and edge cases
- Peer review and reliability testing
We provide structured resources including detailed protocols, recorded training sessions, legal terminology references, and step-by-step tutorials. All participants learn appellate court procedures, judicial decision-making frameworks, and systematic content analysis methods.
Mutual Benefit Model
For students preparing dissertations or pursuing graduate study, the lab offers:
- Hands-on experience with large-scale empirical research
- Training in data collection, coding, and research design
- Understanding of how to identify literature gaps and develop research questions
- Practical skills with research software and databases
- Experience navigating resource constraints in academic research
For law students, the lab provides accelerated training in reading cases efficiently, understanding appellate procedures, and analyzing judicial reasoning from a social science perspective.
Phase 1: July to September 2024
15 research assistants collaborated on initial protocol development. This phase focused on:
- Building coding frameworks through inductive analysis of 400+ cases
- Documenting qualitative patterns across climate litigation
- Developing training materials and resources
- Establishing accountability structures and coordination methods
- Testing inter-coder reliability protocols
Voices from Phase 1
"I'm currently considering a shift toward law, and the climate litigation project provided meaningful exposure to legal reasoning in practice. The exposure to climate litigation helped me understand how legal arguments are built, how claims are supported, and how precedent functions. The quantitative coding was challenging, but it taught me how to organise complex material in a way that supports legal reasoning. Being part of something still emerging and shaping a small piece of it was the most compelling part!"
Denise Abdymomunova
yjmsbdy@ucl.ac.uk
Undergraduate, Politics and Sociology, UCL
"I learned a lot about climate litigation, legal analysis, and coding. Though the inductive nature of the project meant that we often had to switch between methods and the data we wanted to gather, we were all happy to do so and had good managers to train us accordingly. I found your teaching style very initiative, considerate, and proactive. It was impressive to see how at our age and with our educational background you were able to come up with and lead such a project as well as balance other responsibilities and always have time for a quick meeting to explain coding tasks. I felt very supported throughout the project, and I specifically appreciated how approachable the team managers and you were."
Katerina Papanikolaou
katepap646@gmail.com
Undergraduate, Politics and International Relations, UCL
"The exposure to climate litigation helped me develop skills in information synthesis—reading complex material and condensing it into clear summaries—and pattern recognition across legal documents. Even without a future in law specifically, becoming comfortable handling unfamiliar, complex material and learning to analyse it quickly is genuinely useful. I appreciated the enthusiastic and encouraging project environment, which made it feel safe to ask questions."
Isabel Rätsepp
isabelratsepp@gmail.com
Undergraduate, UCL
Current Phase
The core team (3 members) is now scaling up data collection to 850+ decisions using refined protocols developed in Phase 1. We are incorporating lessons learned about measurement validity, coding consistency, and methodological transparency.
Collaboration Opportunities
We seek collaborators with:
- Expertise in text analysis, topic modeling, or NLP applications to legal documents
- Experience with network analysis methods
- Background in litigation studies or judicial politics
- Interest in measurement theory and construct validity
- Commitment to open science and transparent methodology
We value commitment and engagement over credentials. Phase 1 demonstrated that motivated students with appropriate mentoring can produce rigorous analysis regardless of prior experience.
Contact: sacha.bechara.23@ucl.ac.uk