Nonquantitative Research in Law and Public Administration: Approaches in the United States

This article presents an overview of nonquantitative research in the field of law and public administration in the United States. We first consider the extent to which law is relevant to public administrative practice. Next, we review the status of public administration research in the academic field of law and legal research in the academic field of public administration, standard analytic frameworks for researching the intersections of law and public administration, and contemporary tools for doing legal research. We conclude that these excellent tools notwithstanding, successful research often requires deep substantive knowledge of both law and public administration.