The landmark study of the Chicago bar by Heinz and Laumann may project the appearance of having been a deliberate, rigorous, “scientific” project – one that follows a logical scheme and presents data accordingly. Students of the field may take away that perception, in particular, for how the book marshals and presents a raft of quantitative data. Unquestionably, Chicago Lawyers, together with a follow-up study conducted two decades later – published as Urban Lawyers (2005, with Robert Nelson and Rebecca Sandefur) – is an achievement in the sociology of law, possessing both rigor and sophistication in copious amounts.

But what figures and tables obscure, and what Heinz and Laumann are quick to reveal, is the process by which meaningful quantitative analysis is generated. “Quantification” is not a method itself, but an analytical result of a process that requires intuition and reflection. Thus, their collaboration and use of others in their work can be seen as a vital support structure for the analytical as well as the managerial side of a large project, and the qualitative research they describe plays a key role in support of the survey-based data collection employed in these projects. Even with the benefits of time, institutional support, highly qualified teams, and a multiplicity of perspectives, the blinkers of the moment constrain and shape the research process. The limits manifest themselves here, with a twenty-year follow-up in the wings, as a form of path dependence – recognizing mistakes but living with them for purposes of comparability. The work may project an aura, but it requires a form of humility.