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Jurimetrics is the application of quantitative methods, especially probability and statistics, to law.[1] In the United States, the journal Jurimetrics is published by the American Bar Association and Arizona State University.[2] The Journal of Empirical Legal Studies is another publication that emphasizes the statistical analysis of law.
The term was coined in 1949 by Lee Loevinger in his article "Jurimetrics: The Next Step Forward".[1][3] Showing the influence of Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., Loevinger quoted[4] Holmes' celebrated phrase that:
"For the rational study of the law the blackletter man may be the man of the present, but the man of the future is the man of statistics and the master of economics."[5]
The first work on this topic is attributed to Nicolaus I Bernoulli in his doctoral dissertation De Usu Artis Conjectandi in Jure, written in 1709.