The Cross-Disciplinary Legal Studies Program at the University of Alabama School of Law sponsors and supports a variety of research and educational opportunities for faculty and students. The Program is committed to fostering cutting-edge research, analysis, and teaching that focus on the interaction and integration of diverse academic disciplines as they relate to law, legal theory, and public policy. These disciplines include, but are not limited to, philosophy, economics, political science, psychology, sociology, anthropology, feminist theory, history, neuroscience, medicine, and statistics. The program is directed by professor J. Shahar Dillbary and is supported by the Board of Directors and Affiliated Faculty.
The Program sponsors lectures, symposia, and a cross-disciplinary workshop series. The Program also provides support to the law school’s joint-degree programs and to courses and student organizations with an interdisciplinary focus. For a full description of participants, themes and papers, please click on the links below.
The University of Alabama School of Law established the Meador Lectures in 1995 to honor our graduate and former Dean, Daniel J. Meador, who delivered the inaugural lecture. Beginning in 2004-05, the lecture series has focused on a single interdisciplinary theme with a premier group of scholars discussing that theme from their distinct scholarly perspectives. The Meador Lectures are sponsored by the law school’s Program on Cross-Disciplinary Legal Studies.
The Cross-Disciplinary Legal Studies Program plays an important role in facilitating and fostering scholarship and interactions among scholars from different disciplines. As part of this mission the Program holds symposia and offers courses and programs to faculty, policy makers and students.
Established in 2020, this seminar exposes students to cutting edge legal scholarship that employs a wide array of methodologies. Every week a new speaker is invited to present a work in progress related to law, economics, and society. Students write reflection papers that are shared with the speaker. Each session is comprised of two parts. The first is open to the entire law school community and allows students and faculty to engage critically with the speaker. The second is devoted to discussing the development of the research paper, from idea to an article, with special attention to challenges, forking paths, and lessons. Participation in this part is limited and priority is given to students enrolled to the seminar. The seminar is ideal for students who seek to learn how to engage critically with experts and scholarship and develop their own ideas into concrete research scholarship.
2022 SpeakersOn September 2019 , the Cross-Disciplinary Legal Studies Program hosted the 18th Annual Meeting of the Midwestern Law and Economics Association. The conference was organized by Professors Shahar Dillbary and Yonathan Arbel and involved a diverse group of scholars applying different methodologies. The list of the participants and their respective papers is available below. The conference schedule can be found here.
The symposium took place on April 13, 2012 with speakers from the fields of philosophy, psychology, economics, and law. A full list of the speakers, their respective institutional affiliations and the articles presented is available below and on the Conference Program.
Professor Keith Hylton (Boston University School of Law), Negligence, Causation, and Incentives for Care(4/13/2012)
Professor Alex Stein (Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law) at the time of the Symposium and a member of the Israeli Supreme Court since 2018), Are People Probabilistically Challenged? (4/13/2012)
Dean José Luis Bermúdez (College of Liberal Arts, Texas A&M University), Introducing Super-Risk (4/13/2012)
Professor Paul Pecorino (Culverhouse College of Commerce, The University of Alabama), (4/13/2012)
Professor Jeff Rachlinski (Cornell University Law School) Selling Heuristics (4/13/2012)
William Brewbaker
Grace Lee
Meredith Render
Fred Vars