Friedman, Lawrence M(eir) 1930-

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FRIEDMAN, Lawrence M(eir) 1930-

PERSONAL: Born April 2, 1930, in Chicago, IL; son of I. M. and Ethel (Shapiro) Friedman; married Leah Feigenbaum, March 27, 1955; children: Jane, Amy. Education: University of Chicago, A.B., 1948, J.D. 1951, ML.L., 1953. Religion: Jewish. Hobbies and other interests: Music, literature, history, Bible studies.

ADDRESSES: Home—724 Frenchman's Rd., Palo Alto, CA 94305-1005. Office—School of Law, Stanford University, Nathan Abbott Way, Stanford, CA 94305-9991. E-mail[email protected].

CAREER: D'Ancona, Pflaum, Wyatt & Riskind (law firm), Chicago, IL, associate, 1955-57; St. Louis University, Law School, St. Louis, MO, 1957-61, began as assistant professor, became associate professor; University of Wisconsin, Madison, Law School, 1961-68, began as associate professor, became professor of law; Stanford University, Stanford, CA, professor of law, 1968-76, Marion Rice Kirkwood Professor of Law, 1976—. David Stouffer Memorial Lecturer, Rutgers University Law School, 1969; fellow, Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, 1973-74; Sibley lecturer, University of Georgia Law School, 1976; Wayne Morse lecturer, University of Oregon, 1985; fellow, Institute for Advanced Study, Berlin, Germany, 1985; Childress memorial lecturer, St. Louis University, 1987. Military service: U.S. Army, 1953-54; became sergeant.

MEMBER: American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Law and Society Association (president, 1979-81), American Society for Legal History (vice president, 1987-89; president, 1990—).

AWARDS, HONORS: Scribes Award, 1974, for A History of the American Law; Triennial award from the Order of Coif, 1976; Willard Hurst prize, 1982. LL.D. from University of Puget Sound, 1977, City University of New York, 1989, University of Lund (Sweden), 1993, John Marshall Law School, 1995, and University Macerata (Italy), 1998.

WRITINGS:

Contract Law in America, University of Wisconsin Press (Madison, WI), 1965.

Government and Slum Housing: A Century of Frustration, Rand McNally (New York, NY), 1968.

(With Stewart Macaulay) Law and the Behavioral Sciences, Bobbs-Merrill (Indianapolis, IN), 1969, 2nd edition, 1977.

A History of American Law, Simon & Schuster, 1973, 2nd edition, 1985.

The Legal System: A Social Science Perspective, Russell Sage Foundation (New York, NY), 1975.

Law and Society: An Introduction, Prentice-Hall (Englewood Cliffs, NJ), 1978.

(With Robert V. Percival) The Roots of Justice: Crime and Punishment in Alameda County, California, 1870-1910, University of North Carolina Press (Chapel Hill, NC), 1981.

(With Curt D. Furberg and David L. DeMets) Fundamentals of Clinical Trials, J. Wright/PSG Inc. (Boston, MA), 1982.

American Law, Norton (New York, NY), 1984.

Total Justice: What Americans Want from the Legal System and Why, Russell Sage Foundation (New York, NY), 1985.

Your Time Will Come: The Law of Age Discrimination and Mandatory Retirement, Russell Sage Foundation (New York, NY), 1985.

(Editor, with Harry N. Scheiber) American Law and the Constitutional Order: Historical Perspectives, Harvard University Press (Cambridge, MA), 1988.

The Republic of Choice: Law, Authority, and Culture, Harvard University Press (Cambridge, MA) 1990.

Crime and Punishment in American History, Basic Books (New York, NY), 1993.

(Editor, with Stewart Macaulay and John Stookey) Law and Society: Readings on the Social Study of Law, Norton (New York, NY), 1995.

(Editor, with Harry N. Scheiber) Legal Culture and the Legal Profession, Westview Press (Boulder, CO), 1996.

The Crime Conundrum: Essays on Criminal Justice, Westview Press (Boulder, CO), 1997.

The Horizontal Society, Yale University Press (New Haven, CT), 1999.

American Law in the 20th Century, Yale University Press (New Haven, CT), 2002.

Law in America: A Short History, Modern Library (New York, NY), 2002.

(Editor, with Rogelio Perez-Perdomo) Legal Culture in the Age of Globalization: Latin America and Latin Europe, Stanford University Press (Stanford, CA), 2003.

SIDELIGHTS: Noted Stanford law professor Lawrence M. Friedman has written and edited scholarly works on the laws and legal system of the United States. Two works in particular, American Law and A History of American Law, have earned praise for their depth, attention to detail, and coherency.

In his 1984 work American Law, Friedman analyzes the social forces that have shaped and are shaped by legal doctrine. The text spans the roots of American law through contemporary concerns with First Amendment rights and the problems of racial relations and equality, as dealt with under such landmark mandates as the 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education Supreme Court decision outlawing segregation in public schools, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Regarding American Law, New York Times reviewer Francis A. Allen stated that Friedman "achieves the considerable feat of raising interesting points in the discussions of almost every topic he addresses" and has the "admirable capacity of bringing together knowledge and insights gleaned from scores, perhaps hundreds," of sources, "integrating the information into a generally coherent whole." Allen concluded that the author "has proved himself a perceptive and knowledgeable guide." Los Angeles Times Book Review contributor Merton Kamins wrote, "The organization is logical and clearheaded. The prose is lucid, clean, laced with wit and arresting images. Simplifying but never simple-minded, this is a remarkable book."

Friedman has also written a legal reference book, the widely-acclaimed A History of the American Law. This overview assesses the highly complex subject of multijurisdictional American law, including sociological and anthropological subtexts, an area of special concern and expertise for the author. New York Times Book Review contributor Calvin A. Woodward stated that the 1985 version is both richer and more balanced than the earlier volume because of Friedman's decision to place "slightly more emphasis on noneconomic factors. Crime (and criminology and penology) and family law are given rather more, certainly more sensitive, attention than earlier." Summarizing Friedman's book, Woodward wrote, "Every law student must be in his debt, and every historian may find in his example the model for his own future work. The very least we can say is that he has provided us with the best single, coherent history of American law that now exists." Woodward concluded, "It will surely provide the introduction to the history of American law taught and learned in universities and law schools throughout this country for many years to come."

In 2002 Friedman published his sequel to A History of the American Law, American Law in the Twentieth Century. In this work Friedman examines three stages in the development of American law over the last century: the old order of legal formalism, the New Deal era, and the post-Reagan years. Stephen K. Shaw's review for Library Journal noted, "This substantial work covers both legal and historical developments and convincingly situates U.S. law in its broader social context." In Law in America: A Short History, Professor Friedman provides a "concise and lucid overview of the development of the law as it parallels the track of American social, economic, political, and cultural history," noted Library Journal contributor Philip Y. Blue. A Kirkus Reviews writer observed that in order to answer the question of why law is so central to American society, Friedman "sketches the relationship between the development of our society and the concomitant growth of American law from colonial times to the present."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

periodicals

Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Rhode E. Howard-Hassmann, review of The Horizontal Society, p. 228.

Booklist, May 15, 2002, Vernon Ford, review of American Law in the 20th Century, p. 1489.

Choice, October, 1999, M. Klatte, review of The Horizontal Society, p. 414.

Contemporary Sociology, July, 1994, John R. Stutton, review of Crime and Punishment in American History,, p. 574.

Criminal Law Bulletin, May-June 1994, review of Crime and Punishment in American History, p. 293; July-August, 1994, Alan H. Mass, review of Crime and Punishment in American History, p. 397.

Ethics, January, 1987, p. 505.

Harvard Law Review, May, 1994, review of Crime and Punishment in American History, p. 1813.

Journal of American History, December, 1983, p. 688; December, 1986, p. 724.

Journal of Interdisciplinary History, summer, 1995, Roger Lane, review of Crime and Punishment in American History, p. 149.

Kirkus Reviews, May 1, 2002, review of Law in America: A Short History, p. 635.

Legal Times, Robert J. Cottrol, February 14, 1994, review of Crime and Punishment in American History, p. 58.

Library Journal March 1, 1999, Ellen Gilbert, review of The Horizontal Society, p. 102; April 15, 2002, Philip Y. Blue, review of Law in America, p. 106; May 15, 2002, Stephen K. Shaw, review of American Law in the 20th Century, p. 112.

Los Angeles Times Book Review, January 6, 1985, p. 9; March 23, 1986, p. 14.

New York Times Book Review, December 2, 1984, Francis A. Allen, review of American Law, p. 73; January 19, 1986, p. 32; February 16, 1986, p. 31; May 23, 1999, Todd Gitlin, review of The Horizontal Society.

Perspectives on Political Science, spring, 1998, Roger Handberg, review of The Crime Conundrum: Essays on Criminal Justice, p. 124; winter, 2000, Joseph C. Bertolini, review of The Horizontal Society, p. 58.

Political Science Quarterly, winter, 1991, p. 746.

Publishers Weekly, March 8, 1999, review of The Horizontal Society, p. 56.

Reviews in American History, William J. Stuntz, review of Crime and Punishment in American History, p. 153.

Trial, April, 1994, review of Crime and Punishment in American History, p. 72.

Tribune Books (Chicago, IL), October 4, 1987, p. 23.*

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