Samenvatting

In recent years, empirical legal research has been criticized by Dutch legal scholars. These critics maintain that empirical legal research delegitimizes other types of legal scholarship and that empirical legal research cannot account for the normative character of legal scholarship. In this paper, it is argued that this critique is unwarranted. Empirical legal research does not delegitimize other types of legal scholarship. And empirical legal research does not need to adhere to a fact/value dichotomy. Moreover, this paper explores how empirical legal research may enrich other types of legal scholarship.