Richard Lempert is the Eric Stein Distinguished University Professor of Law and Sociology at the University of Michigan, on leave as Division Director for the Social and Economic Sciences at the National Science Foundation. He has been a member of the Law and Society Association since its inception and published his first article in Volume 1 No. 1 of the Law & Society Review. He has served the Law and Society Association as Editor of the Law & Society Review, as a member of the Board of Trustees and twice as a faculty resource person at summer institutes in addition to serving on various Association committees. In the 1980s, while on the Board, he chaired the committee that drafted of the Association’s Constitution and Bylaws. He has also chaired the Sociology of Law Section of the American Sociological Association. Academic honors include receipt of the Law and Society Association's Harry Kalven Jr. Prize for outstanding socio-legal scholarship and membership in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences as well as fellowships at the CASBS and the Russell Sage Foundation. Lempert’s research interests have focused on applying social science research to legal issues as well as roaming widely in the law of evidence. He has done work on juries, capital punishment, the use of statistical and social science evidence by courts, dispute processing, informal justice and affirmative action. He is coauthor of "Michigan's Minority Graduates in Practice: The River Runs Through Law School," a Law & Social Inquiry article which traces the career success of minority group members who graduated from the University of Michigan Law School. This article received a "Best Article Prize" from the Sociology of Law Section of the American Sociological Association. Lempert’s interest in affirmative action also motivated him, along with three coauthors, to respond in the May issue of the Stanford Law Review, to Richard Sander’s attempt to show that law school affirmative action harms black students. In addition, he coauthored A Modern Approach to Evidence, which pioneered the problem-oriented approach to evidence. Lempert is also the author (with Joseph Sanders) of An Invitation to Law and Social Science, and co-editor of the National Academy of Science publication, Under the Influence? Drugs and the American Work Force. Professor Lempert is a graduate of Oberlin College, the University of Michigan Law School, and holds a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Michigan. In addition to his writing and teaching on socio-legal issues, Lempert was the founding director of the University's Life Sciences, Values, and Society Program which explores the ethical, social and cultural implications of modern day genomics.