This is great news for access to justice and research.

Congratulations to Jim on a well-earned promotion to tenured full professor, announced here.  As Dean Martha Minnow put it:

“As he pursues empirical study of vital questions about the benefit of access to legal representation and the operation of voting systems, Jim deploys state-of-the-art statistical analysis, time-intensive methods, and critical thinking. His superb commitment to ensuring that the best empirical evidence guides the design and operation of legal systems is matched only by his devotion to teaching. What a terrific colleague and scholar he is!”

It is obvious that having such a brilliant, energetic, and dedicated person working in this area is going to be a huge help in the future.  I know that it in no way undercuts Jim’s achievement to say that this is also a vote of confidence by Harvard Law in the importance of this area of work and inquiry.  It is part of a broader refocusing on access questions by the academic and research communities — one largely jump started by Jim’s own work.