New legal realism examines law in people's everyday lives, using an interdisciplinary combination of current social science methods, including qualitative, quantitative, and experimental approaches.
Some NLR scholars[1] view their pragmatist approach as a way of bridging between more objective social science (describing how it "is') and more normative policy goals (how it "ought" to be).
In 1997, a group of scholars sponsored a panel entitled “Is It Time for a New Legal Realism?” at the 1997 Law and Society Association Meetings in St. Louis, Missouri.
[3] These two publications examined problems such as poverty, globalization, and discrimination from the combined perspectives of law and social science, focusing on developing better methods for interdisciplinary translation.
NLR scholars were active in forming a collaborative research network, supported by the Law and Society Association, focusing on “Realist and Empirical Legal Methods.” New legal realist scholars utilize empirical methodologies to examine discrimination, judicial decision making, global law, and other topics (see External links, below).
[1][4] In particular, one dominant strand of the US New Legal Realist literature calls for a "bottom up" approach in which scholars pay attention to law on the ground, in everyday lives, using qualitative as well as quantitative methods.
By contrast, another strand proceeds using a more exclusively "top down" approach, focusing on courts and judicial opinions, and generally using quantitative methods.