Mapping the Future: An Introduction to Legal Mapping

By Rahil Zaveri '27

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Introduction

As modern academia becomes increasingly scientific and methodological, the legal field often seems to fall behind. It is not surprising that a discipline so ancient and intertwined with historical, social, and political issues struggles to be consistent with the objective and structured scientific method, but in recent decades the field has been expanding to meet these standards. Increasingly, law reviews feature papers that write about data analysis, technical biochemistry, and even quantum physics– a far cry from traditional fields like history and philosophy. Despite these changes, some of these sciences receive much more attention than others, which in turn leads to the underdevelopment of certain potential disciplinary overlaps. The connection between geography and the law is one such example. The theory of legal mapping provides a unique opportunity for future research.

What is Legal Mapping? 

According to Temple University, “[s]cientific legal mapping…analyzes the state of the law concerning a particular legal topic.” (1) These studies may take a ‘snapshot’ of the law at a particular time or look at changes over time, often spanning across multiple jurisdictions (e.g., looking at nation-wide differences through a “50 state survey”). (2) In doing so, they look at policy and their impacts, so that their effectiveness can be weighed against statistics and data. (3) While legal mapping studies are mostly employed in public health law, there is a litany of other fields that it could benefit, such as political science and criminology. For instance, a legal mapping study may examine the impact of different voting systems on the types of candidates elected, or perhaps the effect of differing mandatory minimums on criminal recidivism rates.

Despite having a plethora of potential benefits, legal mapping studies are also not very difficult to conduct. In fact, these studies are far more similar to straightforward, scientific method-based research papers than most law review articles. Legal mapping studies follow a simple series of steps where they reliably and replicably collect and code laws into data, develop measurements consistent with those sets of data, and finally display that data in a table or map. (4) As a result of these straightforward methods, legal mapping papers are conventional and concise, organized into “Background, Methods, Results, Discussion, Limitations, and Conclusion” sections. (5) This also means that once data is collected and organized, there is little room for subjective commentary, which also differentiates it from the average legal study.

Examples of Legal Maps

Legal mapping is an extremely convenient way to view policy and its impacts across many disciplines. Some examples are as follows:

State Laws Restricting Driver Use of Mobile Communications Devices: Distracted-Driving Provisions, 1992-2010

Published in the American Journal of Preventative Medicine in 2011, Ibrahim et al. sought to map laws restricting the use of mobile communications devices (MCDs) by drivers across different U.S. states. (6) The study used data from Westlaw and Lexis-Nexis and searched for terms like “cellphone” to compile state policies on distracted driving enacted between 1992-2010. (7) In their conclusion, they found that despite evidence demonstrating that distracted driving was harmful, states differed in their levels of regulation, enforcement, and punishment. (8) They also found that no state had completely banned the use of MCDs by drivers. (9) By conducting this study, Ibrahim et al. were able to place legal provisions into real world contexts and draw important information regarding public policy. While a traditional legal paper could have determined shortcomings in laws concerning distracted driving and MCDs, Ibrahim et al.’s legal mapping created a more explanatory and comprehensive model that could be readily understood by laypeople. This study combined the fields of law and public health and is among one of the more classic examples of legal mapping. 

Mapping Abortion Policies, Programmes and Services in the WHO South-East Asia Region

Legal mapping studies are not limited to just the U.S. either. In a more informal version of legal mapping, the World Health Organization (WHO) categorized, organized, and analyzed abortion policies and services across countries in South-East Asia. These countries ranged all the way from India to Indonesia, but through their research, the WHO found that there were wide disparities in the legal reasons for which abortions were permitted. (10) In countries like Myanmar and Timor-Leste, abortions were only permitted to save the mother’s life, whereas in Nepal abortions were permitted simply upon request. (11) As a sector of public health, mapping these laws can help organizations like the WHO determine where more support and resources are needed. These studies can also benefit cases involving international law and public policy disputes, where legal disparities between neighboring countries may drive patterns of migration. Contrary to a traditional legal paper, these maps provide a spatial element that helps calculate distances, costs, etc.

Implications and Limitations

As alluded to, the implications for legal mapping are numerous. Legal mapping helps develop public policy and allows for better legislative decision-making, whether it be in public health or any other field (e.g., reviewing evidentiary standards across states). They increase the ease, convenience, and accessibility with which policies are understood and compared. Finally, they also create necessary intersections between the legal field and other academic disciplines that provide a fuller picture of how laws operate day-to-day. 

Nevertheless, legal mapping still has its issues. Some are contingent on the restrictions of legal academia, which still prioritize the writing and publication of ‘traditional’ legal articles. These result in the general lack of awareness and underuse of legal mapping. Other issues are related to the nature of legal mapping itself, wherein its effectiveness is limited by the subjective coding of laws (how the authors decide to catalog and categorize policies) or the presence of multiple overlapping jurisdictions (policies at county and city levels may differ from the state). Clearly, precautions are necessary in the wider implementation of legal mapping, but it is undeniable that the legal field should adopt its advantageous versatility and methodology.

Endnotes

1. “Legal Mapping,” Public Health Law Research Guide, Temple University, last modified December 12, 2023, https://guides.temple.edu/c.php?g=990083&p=7162366.

2. Ibid.

3. Ibid.

4. Scott Burris, “How to Write a Legal Mapping Paper,” Temple University Legal Studies Research Paper, no. 2018-10 (2020): 4, http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3133065. 

5. Ibid., 3.

6. Ibrahim et al., “State Laws Restricting Driver Use of Mobile Communications Devices Distracted-Driving Provisions,” 1992-2010, American Journal of Preventative Medicine 40, no. 6 (2011): 660, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.amepre.2011.02.024.

7. Ibid., 661.

8. Ibid.

9. Ibid.

10. World Health Organization, Regional Office for South-East Asia, Mapping Abortion Policies, Programmes, and Services in the South-East Asia Region (New Delhi: WHO Regional Office for South-East Asia, 2013), https://iris.who.int/handle/10665/205480.

11. Ibid.