Two former LSA presidents from UC Berkeley School of Law recently received honors. Lauren Edelman, who served as the Association’s president from 2002-03, was elected to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. Malcolm Feeley (president from 2005-07) received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Law and Courts Section of the American Political Science Association.
Founded in 1780, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences honors excellence and convenes leaders to examine new ideas, address issues of importance to the nation and the world and advance the public good. For more than 240 years, the Academy has been electing and engaging exceptional individuals. This year’s election of 261 new members continues a tradition of recognizing accomplishments and leadership in academia, the arts, industry, public policy and research.
Professor Edelman’s research addresses the interplay between organizations and their legal environments, focusing on employers’ responses to and constructions of civil rights laws, workers’ mobilization of legal rights, the impact of management practices on law and legal institutions, dispute resolution in organizations, school rights, empirical critical race studies, empirical sociolegal studies and employer accommodations of disabilities in the workplace. Her publications appear in the American Journal of Sociology, Law & Society Review, Law & Social Inquiry, Law & Policy, Annual Review of Sociology, Annual Review of Law and Social Science and numerous edited volumes. She is currently an LSA Board of Trustee member (Class of 2022) and has won three LSA awards, including the Harry J. Kalven, Jr. Prize (2018), the Stan Wheeler Mentorship award (2017) and the Article Prize (2012).
The Lifetime Achievement Award is an honor for a lifetime of significant scholarship, teaching and service to the Law and Courts field. Professor Feeley becomes the 27th scholar to earn this award. He has written or edited over a dozen books, and has authored several dozen articles in social science journals and law reviews. Professor Feeley’s most recent articles examine issues of federalism, women and crime in the eighteenth century, prison privatization and the role of bench and bar in fostering political liberalism. Over his career, he has received research fellowships from the Russell Sage Foundation, Guggenheim Foundation, National Institute of Justice, National Science Foundation, American Bar Foundation and the Twentieth Century Fund. He is a two-time LSA prize winner, taking home the Legacy Award in 2020 and the Harry J. Kalven, Jr. Prize in 2015.