Law & Society Review, the publication of the Law & Society Association, published a special memorial issue to honor Professor Lauren Edelman ’86, who died in February. Edelman was deeply involved with the interdisciplinary organization for sociolegal scholars, and served as its president in 2002-03.
Several of the works were written by Edelman’s faculty colleagues and former students, including Diana Reddy Ph.D. ’23, who joined our faculty this summer.
“Faculty members, students, policymakers, practitioners, and laypersons will learn from Laurie Edelman’s brilliant scholarship for generations to come,” write Professors Catherine R. Albiston ’93, Calvin Morrill, and Osagie K. Obasogie, who worked closely with Edelman through the school’s Jurisprudence & Social Policy (JSP) Program. “She developed not only a new theory and a conceptual vocabulary for understanding the interplay of law and organizations — think, ‘legal endogeneity,’ ‘managerialization of law,’ or ‘symbolic structures’ — but also a more precise account of the mutual influence between law and society.”
Two of the three editors of the issue, Ashley Rubin Ph.D. ’13, and Shauhin Talesh Ph.D. ’11, are JSP alumni and share their personal experience of Edelman as a mentor.
“These essays collectively reveal the arc of a person who devoted herself to scholarship, teaching, service, collaboration, and mentorship at the highest levels,” Rubin, Talesh, and Katharina Heyer write. “Whether the contributing authors to this special memorial issue were former students, collaborators, colleagues, or professional associates, they all highlight how much they learned from Laurie and how much they benefited from her presence in their lives.”