Keren Weinshall is a Professor of Law and the Edward S. Silver Chair in Civil Procedure. Before joining the law faculty, she served as the Founding Director of the Israeli Courts Research Division and as a national expert for the European Commission for the Efficiency of Justice (CEPEJ) in the Council of Europe. Previously, she was a legal adviser to the Constitution, Law, and Justice Committee of Israel’s parliament.
Weinshall specializes in empirical research on socio-legal institutions. Her work is interdisciplinary, exploring the relationship between law and politics, with a particular focus on comparative judicial decision-making. Her recent books include a co-edited volume of The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Judicial Behavior (2024) and a co-authored monograph, Strategic Analysis of Judicial Behavior: A Comparative Perspective (Cambridge University Press, 2021). She has published extensively in leading academic journals, including the Journal of Empirical Legal Studies (JELS), the American Journal of Comparative Law, and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
A Fellow of the Israel Young Academy of Arts and Sciences (2017–2021), Weinshall has received distinguished awards, including the Provost Prize for Excellent Researchers, the Gorny Prize for Outstanding Scholars in Public Law, and the Heshin Award for Excellence in Legal Research. Her research has been supported by major grants from the Center for Research Excellence (I-CORE), the Israel Science Foundation, and other funding bodies.
Education
Harvard Law School, Harvard University Visiting Researcher, 2009-2010
Ranked 1st in the P.S. Department and in the top 1% of Social Sciences' Faculty
Rector's list, 2007
Dean's List, 2002
Representative publications:
Books (partial list):
Lee Epstein, Gunnar Grendstad, Urˇska Sadl & Keren Weinshall (Eds), The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Judicial Behaviour, Oxford University Press, 2024.
Lee Epstein & Keren Weinshall, The Strategic Analysis of Judicial Behavior: A Comparative Perspective (monograph in Cambridge Elements in Law, Economics, and Politics), Cambridge University Press, 2021.
Articles (partial list):
Keren Weinshall, The Supreme Divide: How SCOTUS Stands Out Among Global Apex Courts, The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science (expected 2025).
Keren Weinshall, Reconceptualizing Judicial Activism: Intervention Versus Involvement in the Israeli Supreme Court. Journal of Law & Empirical Analysis, 1(2): 1-24 (2024).
Tamar Kricheli-Katz & Keren Weinshall, Judging Fast or Slow: The Effects of Reduced Caseloads on Gender- and Ethnic- Based Disparities in Case Outcomes, Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, 961-1004 (2023).
Christoph Engel & Keren Weinshall, Diffusion of Legal Innovations, 18 Annual Review of Law and Social Science, 139-153 (2022).
Elena Kantorowicz-Reznichenko, Jaroslaw Kantorowicz & Keren Weinshall, Ideological Bias in Constitutional Judgments: Experimental Analysis and Potential Solutions. 19(3) Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, 716-757 (2022).
Lee Epstein, Urška Šadl & Keren Weinshall, The Role of Comparative Law in the Analysis of Judicial Behavior, American Journal of Comparative Law, 689–719 (2021).
Keren Weinshall, Courts and Diversity: Normative Justifications and their Empirical Implications, 15(2) Law & Ethics of Human Rights, 187-220 (2021).
Keren Weinshall & Lee Epstein, Developing 'Big Data' Infrastructure for Legal Analytics: Introducing the Israeli Supreme Court Database, 17 Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, 416-434 (2020)
Christoph Engel & Keren Weinshall, Manna from Heaven for Judges: Judges’ Reaction to a Quasi-Random Reduction in Caseload, 17 Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, 722-751 (2020).
Keren Weinshall, Udi Sommer & Ya’acov Ritov, Ideological Influences on Governance and Regulation: The Comparative Case of Supreme Courts, 12 Regulation & Governance, 315-427 (2018).
Keren Weinshall & Ifat Taraboulos, Litigation Costs and Cost-Shifting Practices, 47 Hebrew University Law Review (Mishpatim), 763-814 (2017).
Keren Weinshall-Margel & Inbal Galon, Cause and Effect in Sentencing, 37 Tel Aviv University Law Review (Iyunei Mishpat), 221-269 (2016)
Oren Gazal-Ayal & Keren Weinshall-Margel, Does the Prosecution Call All the Shots? The Limited Extent of Prosecutorial Power, 44 Hebrew University Law Review (Mishpatim), 835-889 (2015).
Keren Weinshall-Margel, Attitudinal and Neo-Institutional Models of Supreme Court Decision Making: An Empirical and Comparative Perspective from Israel, 8 Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, 556-586 (2011).
Keren Weinshall-Margel & John Shapard, Overlooked Factors in the Analysis of Parole Decisions, 108 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 833-834 (2011).