A tribute to Lauren Edelman

Abstract

We have lost a great one. Laurie Edelman was a gentle, generous, ingenious, and generative giant in socio-legal studies. Her passing is devastating for me, for many others, and generally for our field of intellectual inquiry.I was not a close personal friend with Laurie in the way that many were, especially those who worked and lived in close geographic proximity to her. But I interacted and collaborated often with Laurie for most of the last 30 years, especially since she took a faculty position at Berkeley in 1996. We were roughly the same age and our treks through academic life were parallel in many ways. From our earliest encounters, she was for me a constant source of inspiration, a role model, a catalyst, a teacher, and more. These engagements were more than enough for me to witness her ironic sense of humor, her gracious support of others, her love of intellectual exchange, and her profound commitments as a scholar, teacher, public intellectual, and professional colleague. I will not try here to summarize her many, many activities and accomplishments, although I urge people to spend some time reading her lengthy CV, various profiles, and testaments from others to appreciate all that she did and how she mattered. Instead, I will focus my reflections on the various points of direct interaction with Laurie that mattered most to me and qualify me for commentary.