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Roscoe Pound





EARLY LIFE

Pound was born in Lincoln, Nebraska , USA to Stephen Bosworth Pound and Laura Pound.

Pound studied botany at the University Of Nebraska (BA, 1888, & MA, 1889) in Lincoln, Nebraska. In 1889, he began the study of law; he spent one year at Harvard but never received a law degree. He received the first PhD, in botany, from the University of Nebraska in 1898.


LAW CAREER

In 1903, Pound became dean of the University Of Nebraska College of Law. Also in 1903 Pound, with George Condra , founded the Society Of Innocents , the preeminent senior honor society at Nebraska. It is still in existence. In 1910, Pound began teaching at Harvard and in 1916 became dean of Harvard Law School . He wrote "Spurious Interpretation" in 1907,'' Outlines Of Lectures On Jurisprudence '' in 1914 , '' The Spirit Of The Common Law '' in 1921 , '' Law And Morals '' in 1924 , and '' Criminal Justice In America '' in 1930 . He was the founder of the movement for "sociological jurisprudence," an influential critic of the Supreme Court's "liberty of contract" line of cases, symbolized by '' Lochner V. New York '' (1905), and one of the early leaders of the movement for American Legal Realism, which argued for a more pragmatic and public-interested interpretation of law and a focus on how the legal process actually occurred, as opposed to the arid legal formalism which prevailed in American jurisprudence at the time. Pound would later turn against the movement and became a leading critic of the legal realists later in his life.

Pound was a brother of Louise Pound , who was also a distinguished educator and author.


CRIMINAL JUSTICE IN CLEVELAND



QUOTES

One of his most oft-quoted views was on professionalism:
The term {Link without Title} refers to a group pursuing a learned art as a common calling in the spirit of public service - no less a public service because it may incidentally be a means of livelihood. Pursuit of the learned art in the spirit of a public service is the primary purpose.

MISCELLANEOUS



SEE ALSO



NOTES



REFERENCES

  • Pound, Roscoe. ''American National Biography''. 17:760-763. 1999.



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