Pound, Roscoe (1870–1964)

Roscoe Pound was the long-time dean of Harvard Law School (1916–1936), who brought an important movement in law called sociological jurisprudence to America. In a speech he delivered before the American Bar Association in 1906, Pound called for the reform and modernization of legal formalism, a doctrine he regarded as antiquated.

Pound learned German in his youth, earned a PhD in botany that involved reading the work of German scientists, and studied Roman law. Michael Hoeflich divides Pound's scholarship into three areas. The first area was legal philosophy; he was especially interested in Rudolf von Jhering's (1818–1892) jurisprudence of interests (Interessenjurisprudenz) and other civilian jurists' writing about sociological jurisprudence. The second field involved the development of Roman law, its transformation into modern civil law systems, and ...