Lawrence M. Friedman
- Marion Rice Kirkwood Professor of Law, Emeritus
- Room N359, Neukom Building
Expertise
- Law & Society
- Legal History
Biography
Professor (by courtesy) of History and Professor (by courtesy) of Political Science
An internationally renowned, prize-winning legal historian, Lawrence M. Friedman has for a generation been the leading expositor of the history of American law to a global audience of lawyers and lay people alike—and a leading figure in the law and society movement. He is particularly well known for treating legal history as a branch of general social history. From his award-winning History of American Law, first published in 1973, to his American Law in the 20th Century, published in 2003, his canonical works have become classic textbooks in legal and undergraduate education.
Professor Friedman is a prolific author on crime and punishment, and his numerous books have been translated into multiple languages. He is the recipient of six honorary law degrees and is a fellow in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Before joining the Stanford Law School faculty in 1968, he was a professor of law at the University of Wisconsin Law School and at Saint Louis University School of Law.
Professor Friedman has an appointment (by courtesy) with the Stanford University Department of History and the Department of Political Science.
Education
- BA University of Chicago 1948
- JD University of Chicago Law School 1951; LLM 1953
Related Organizations
Courses
Affiliations & Honors
- Past President, American Society for Legal History
- Past President, Research Committee, Sociology of Law, International Sociological Association
- Past President, Law and Society Association
- Honorary LLD, University of Puget Sound, 1977; John Jay C., City University of New York, 1989; University of Lund, 1993; John Marshall Law School, 1995; University of Macerata (Italy), 1997
- Honorary D.Juris, University of Milan (Italy), 2006
- Fellow, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Society of American Historians
- Recipient, Triennial Book Award of the Order of the Coif, 1976
- Recipient, John Bingham Hurlbut Award for Excellence in Teaching, Stanford, 1976
- Recipient, James Willard Hurst Prize, Law and Society Association, 1982
- Recipient, Harry Kalven Prize, for Distinguished Research on Law and Society, Law and Society Association, 1992
- Recipient, Silver Gavel Award of the American Bar Association, 1994
- Recipient, American Bar Foundation Research Award, 2001
Faculty on Point | Lawrence Friedman on Impact and Crime without Punishment
Faculty on Point | Lawrence Friedman on History, Law and Society
Key Works
News
The Hideous Resurrection of the Comstock Act
The New York Times
Comstock died in 1915, and the Comstock Act, the notorious anti-obscenity law used to indict the Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger, ban books by D.H. Lawrence and arrest people by the thousands, turned 150 last month. Had this anniversary fallen five or 10 years ago, it barely would have been…
Read More : The Hideous Resurrection of the Comstock Act