I realized that I have yet to be comfortable with legal terminologies... since it was hard for me to grasp what this passage was saying. I had to re-read the part a couple times. It turned out to be well-structured and clearly stated passage.
Here is the Passage Analysis.
P1:
Upon using social science tools to analyze court opinions, traditional legal research has been criticized due to its insufficient representative applicable cases.
Z and S’s attempt to utilize “outcome analysis” technique regarding social science is misguided, though.
P2:
Regarding statistical data to concern for success chance is the fundamental concern. Just reason can surely lead to the win despite bad odd.
Disregarding other factors as quality of evidence and attitude of judge is not good.
*Academic sex discrimination case - plaintiff more likely to prevail.
P3:
Two more useful application of social science.
“policy capturing” - identify variables on each opinion and then use multivariate analysis to predict outcome. Advantage is that this reasons the outcome with regard to factors, not simply report.
Complete transcript - identify all cases during certain period and identify variables. While limited to certain period, helps potential plaintiff and defendants in assessing their cases.
Overall:
Using social science tool in court analysis, Z and S’ outcome analysis is insufficient while there are two better applications of it.