Biography

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 St. Louis University Law School.

Professor Friedman has an appointment (by courtesy) with the Stanford University Department of History and the Department of Political Science.

Key Works

• Lawrence M. Friedman, A History of American Law, 3rd ed., New York: Simon & Schuster, 2005.
• Lawrence M. Friedman, American Law in the 20th Century, New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002. 722 pages.
• Lawrence M. Friedman, Crime and Punishment in American History, in Violence in America: an Encyclopedia, Ronald Gottesman, editor-in-chief and Richard Maxwell Brown, consulting editor. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1999. (p.330-342)
• Lawrence M. Friedman, The Horizontal Society, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999. 310 pages.
• Lawrence M. Friedman, The Legal System: A Social Science Perspective, New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1975. (p. 338)

In the News

• Privacy? We Got Over It
  The Wall Street Journal, August 25, 2008

Courses & Programs

Courses

• History of American Law
• SPILS Law and Society Seminar
• Workshop in Sociology of Law

Publications & Cases

Recent Publications View All

• Lawrence M. Friedman, The Legal System, in Understanding America: The Anatomy of an Exceptional Nation, Peter H. Schuck and James Q. Wilson, eds., New York: PublicAffairs, April 2008.
• Lawrence M. Friedman, The Litigation Revolution, in The Cambridge History of Law in America, Vol. III, Michael Grossberg and Christopher Tomlins, eds., New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008.
• Lawrence M. Friedman, Guarding Life's Dark Secrets: Legal and Social Controls Over Reputation, Propriety, and Privacy, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, November 2007.
• Stewart Macauly, Lawrence M. Friedman and Elizabeth Mertz, Law in Action: A Socio-Legal Reader, New York: Foundation Press, 2007.
• Lawrence M. Friedman, The Inheritance Process in San Bernardino County, California, 1964: A Research Note, 43 Houston Law Review 1445 (2007).
• Lawrence M. Friedman, Assessing the Rehnquist Court, 41 Comparative Law Review (2007). (translated into Japanese by Shigeo Miyagawa)
• Lawrence M. Friedman, Looking Backward: The Central District of California, 36 Southwestern University Law Review 245 (2007).
• Lawrence M. Friedman, Preface, in Encyclopedia of Law and Society, Vol. I, David S. Clark, ed., Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 2007.
• Lawrence M. Friedman, Human Rights and Modern Legal Culture in Human Rights in the Pacific Rim: Imagining a New Critical Discourse, Edmund Ryden SJ and Barbara K. Bundy, eds., Taiwan: Fu Jen Catholic University Press, 2006.
• Lawrence M. Friedman, Judging the Judges: Some Remarks on the Way Judges Think and the Way Judges Act in Norms and the Law, John N. Drobak, ed., New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006.

Affiliations & Honors

Professional Affiliations

• Past President, American Society for Legal History
• Past President, Research Committee, Sociology of Law, International Sociological Association
• Past President, Law and Society Association

Honors and Awards

• 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