Samenvatting

The American Legal Realism movement, which originated in the beginning of the twentieth century and was active until the Fifties, can be seen as one of the founders of current Empirical Legal Studies because of the importance it attached to social scientific knowledge on behavior of – for instance – judges and others involved in the judiciary. The author sketches several characteristics of Legal Realism at that time. Exploring their range of thought he also examines whether Legal Realism’s studies can be seen as a research program. The recent emergence of New Legal Realism in the US and elsewhere leads to the question what characterizes this (re)new(al) movement. Finally it is argued that American Legal Realism especially contributed to scientific progress by posing new questions, changing focus and by stressing the importance of empirical evidence.