ELSA-VU Lunch Meeting: Empirical Legal Research for Legal Recommendation: Lessons from Stakeholder Interviews

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Empirical legal research increasingly informs debates about legal reform, yet the methodological question of how empirical insights should contribute to normative legal recommendation remains under-theorised. This presentation distils lessons learnt for recommendation-making working with qualitative stakeholder interviews conducted within my PhD project on climate change responsibility. Based on semi-structured interviews with civil society actors, law and policy makers, and business representatives, I reflect on how stakeholder perspectives can be integrated into normative legal reasoning without collapsing the is/ought distinction.

The presentation develops three methodological lessons through a structured process of “taking three steps back” from the research. First, it identifies a typology of stakeholder response profiles, concrete proposals, engagement through theories and principles, and deference to expertise, to understand the different forms of normative input this type of empirical research generates. Second, it demonstrates how these distinct forms of input can be positioned within a framework for legal recommendation, contributing differently to brainstorming, refinement, evaluation, and justification. Third, it reflects on what this structured integration might reveal about the methodological and political positioning of empirical legal scholarship.

The presentation argues that empirical stakeholder research may be embedded within a transparent methodological architecture to function as a structured source of normative orientation that enhances the social grounding of legal recommendations. In doing so, it offers a transferable model for integrating empirical legal research into recommendation-oriented scholarship.

LEVEL: Basic/medium

METHOD: Qualitative

ABOUT THE LECTURER: Bethany Houghton is lecturer at the department of Transnational Legal Studies at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. She is in the final phase of her doctoral research entitled Climate Justice and the Legitimacy of Law: An Empirical-Legal Study.

PREREQUISITES: No prior knowledge is required.

REGISTRATION: If you would like to attend this meeting, please send an email to Anniek van der Schuijt, E: j.m.vander.schuijt@vu.nl, on 4 March at the latest. She will send you the Teams link to join the online meeting. If you are interested but not available, please let Anniek know and a recording of the lecture can be sent to you afterwards.