25 Facts About Roscoe Pound

Nathan Roscoe Pound was an American legal scholar and educator.

Roscoe Pound served as dean of the University of Nebraska College of Law from 1903 to 1911 and was dean of Harvard Law School from 1916 to 1936.

Roscoe Pound was a member of Northwestern University, the University of Chicago Law School and the faculty at UCLA School of Law in the school's early years, from 1949 to 1952.

Roscoe Pound's sister was the noted linguist and folklorist, Louise Pound.

Roscoe Pound studied botany at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln, where he became a member of the Acacia fraternity.

Roscoe Pound received his bachelor's degree in 1888 and his master's degree in 1889.

Roscoe Pound received the first PhD in botany from the University of Nebraska in 1898.

In 1903, Roscoe Pound became dean of the University of Nebraska College of Law.

Roscoe Pound was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1911.

Roscoe Pound wrote "Spurious Interpretation" in 1907, Outlines of Lectures on Jurisprudence in 1914, The Spirit of the Common Law in 1921, Law and Morals in 1924, and Criminal Justice in America in 1930.

Roscoe Pound taught that subject at Nebraska, Northwestern and Harvard.

In 1937 Roscoe Pound turned against the New Deal and the Legal Realism movement altogether after Roosevelt proposed packing the federal courts and bringing independent agencies into the executive branch.

Roscoe Pound had for years been an outspoken advocate of these court and administrative reforms that Roosevelt proposed and it was acknowledged that he only became conservative because he saw an opportunity to gain attention after his Harvard colleagues had turned on his ideas of government reform after Roosevelt had proposed them.

In 1937 Roscoe Pound resigned as Dean of Harvard Law School to become a University Professor and soon became a leading critic of the legal realists.

Roscoe Pound proposed his ideas of government reform to Chinese leader Chiang Kai-shek.

In 1934 Roscoe Pound received an honorary degree from the University of Berlin, presented by the German ambassador to the United States.

Roscoe Pound was among the famous American jurists to express a liking for Adolf Hitler.

Roscoe Pound was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1940.

Roscoe Pound joined the faculty of UCLA School of Law in 1949, the year the law school opened, and remained on the faculty until 1952.

Roscoe Pound made a significant contribution to jurisprudence in the tradition of sociological jurisprudence, which emphasized the importance of social relationships in the development of law and vice versa.

Roscoe Pound argued that laws must be understood by examining the "interests" that they serve.

In 1903, Roscoe Pound co-founded the Society of Innocents, the preeminent senior honor society at Nebraska.

Roscoe Pound served as Deputy Grand Master for the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts in 1915 and delivered a series of Masonic lectures for the Grand Lodge in March and April 1916.

In 1946, Roscoe Pound helped the 22-year-old Charlie Munger, later a successful businessman and investor, to get into Harvard Law school.

Roscoe Pound was inducted into the Nebraska Hall of Fame in 1976.