FOUNDED IN 1964

LSA History

The Law and Society Association was founded in 1964 by Professors Harry Ball, Robert Yegge, and Richard Schwartz. Professor Ball became the first President of LSA and Professor Schwartz served as the first editor of the Association’s journal, the Law & Society Review.

With help from a grant from the Russell Sage Foundation, the first issue of the Review appeared in November 1966. For its first decade, LSA meetings were held in conjunction with the meetings of other major disciplinary associations. The LSA held its first stand-alone national meeting in Buffalo, New York in 1975 and its first annual meeting three years later in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

The Executive Office of LSA began at the University of Denver in 1971 before moving to the University of Massachusetts at Amherst in 1987 and then the University of Utah in Salt Lake City in 2012. The Executive Office returned to the campus of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst in 2018.

VIDEO SERIES

The Center for the Study of Law and Society at the University of California-Berkeley has begun a project to document the intellectual origins of the field of law and society. It has conducted interviews with several founders of the field, most of whom were active in the Law and Society Association.

LSA Presidents

Michele Goodwin

2023-2025

Georgetown Law

Laura Beth Nielsen

2021-2023

Northwestern University

LSA history

Penelope Andrews

2019-2021

New York University

LSA history

Kim Scheppele

2017-2019

Princeton University

LSA history

Valerie Hans

2015-2017

Cornell University

LSA history

Carroll Seron

2013-2015

University of California, Irvine

LSA history

Michael W. McCann

2011-2013

University of Washington

LSA history

Laura E. Gómez

2009-2011

University of New Mexico

LSA history

Richard Lempert

2007-2009

University of Michigan

LSA history

Malcolm Feeley

2005-2007

University of California, Berkeley

LSA history

Howard Erlanger

2003-2005

University of Wisconsin

LSA history

Lauren Edelman

2002-2003

University of California, Berkeley

LSA history

Lynn Mather

2001-2002

Dartmouth College

LSA history

Kitty Calavita

2000-2001

University of California, Irvine

LSA history

Frank Munger

1999-2000

State University of New York, Buffalo

LSA history

Austin Sarat

1998-1999

Amherst College

LSA history

David Engel

1997-1998

State University of New York, Buffalo

LSA history

Carol Greenhouse

1996-1997

Indiana University

LSA history

Susan Silbey

1995-1996

Wellesley College

LSA history

Sally Merry

1993-1995

Wellesley College

LSA history

Joel Handler

1991-1993

University of California, Los Angeles

LSA history

Richard Abel

1989-1991

University of California, Los Angeles

LSA history

Felice Levine

1987-1989

National Science Foundation

LSA history

Stewart Macaulay

1985-1987

University of Wisconsin, Madison

LSA history

Marc Galanter

1983-1985

University of Wisconsin, Madison

LSA history

Herbert Jacob

1981-1983

Northwestern University

LSA history

Lawrence Friedman

1979-1981

Stanford University

LSA history

Charles Kelso

1977-1979

University of the Pacific

LSA history

Samuel Krislov

1975-1977

University of Minnesota

LSA history

Richard Schwartz

1972-1975

State University of New York, Buffalo

LSA history

Victor Rosenblum

1970-1972

Northwestern University

LSA history

Robert Yegge

1966-1970

University of Denver

LSA history

Harry Ball

1964-1965

University of Wisconsin (1st year) & University of Hawai’i

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