Comparative Readings of Roscoe Pound’s Jurisprudence

Abstract

Roscoe Pound remains a particularly enigmatic character in the history of American On the one hand, he is the muchbeloved young lion whose early and enthusiastic support of sociological jurisprudence marked the death-knell of Nineteenth Century formalism or mechanical jurisprudence. On the other hand, he is the stubborn and authoritarian old dean of the Harvard Law School whose sour reception of, and even hostility towards, legal realism represented an oddly reactionary resistance to the logical development of his own early work. What is largely forgotten, however, is the seminal role that Pound played in the history of American comparative law. Despite his stunningly long and prominent academic career, and despite the centrality of comparative law to his teaching and scholarly agendas, Roscoe Pound's direct impact on contemporary American comparative law can best be described as non-existent. Pound taught law for over fifty years, served as Dean of the Harvard Law School for over twenty, and was still actively publishing until I960.1 From the very beginning of his academic career, Pound was deeply interested in, taught, researched, and wrote about comparative law. His initial teaching load at the law school of the University of Nebraska in 1899, for example, consisted of courses in Analytical Jurisprudence, Historical Jurisprudence, Roman Law, Comparative Law, and History of English Law.2 In the 1950's, near the end of his career, he even served seven years as the President of the Academie Internationale de Droit Compare.3 Nonetheless, Roscoe Pound has been all but forgotten by contemporary American comparativists, qualifying him perhaps as American comparative law's most famous unknown practitioner.