History of American Law, first published in 1973 and now in its fourth edition, has several references to legal culture, as do most of the other books and articles he has published. His key work on legal culture is still ‘Legal Culture and Social Development’ from1969.1 Inspired by the idea of political culture in social science, the article is a revised version of a speech he gave in December 1968 to the Association of American Law Schools, the same year as he moved chairs from the University of Wisconsin Law School to Stanford. It is a bravura display of his understanding of legal culture and his interest in social and legal change. The ideas it contained became the core of his project on legal culture and the legal profession conducted withHarryN. Scheiber, and themany references to legal culture, in for instance Friedman’s American Legal History, must be seen against the background of the article.2 Friedman was not the first to introduce the concept of legal culture. The need to understand law in its physical and mental context has been awrence m. friedmanis a leading light in several fields and has pioneered the use of legal culture in research. His monumental A L part ii • legal cultures 1 Lawrence M. Friedman, ‘Legal Culture and Social Development’, Law&Society Review4/1 (1969), 29–44; interview with Lawrence Friedman in this volume. 2 See Lawrence M. Fridman &Harry N. Scheiber, ‘Legal Cultures and the Legal Profession’, Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences 48/5 (1995), 6–13. 122 Legal culture as a tool for legal analysis 7. Jørn Øyrehagen Sunde
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