POUND, ROSCOE

born Oct. 27, 1870, Lincoln, Neb., U.S. died July 1, 1964, Cambridge, Mass. American jurist, botanist, and educator, chief advocate of "sociological jurisprudence" and a leader in the reform of court administration in the United States. After studying botany at the University of Nebraska (B.A., 1888; Ph.D., 1897) and law at Harvard (1889-90), Pound was admitted to the Nebraska bar, and he practiced law while also teaching at the state university (1890-1903). During the term he served as director of the state botanical survey (1892-1903), he discovered a rare fungus, which was subsequently named Roscopoundia. Pound also served as commissioner of appeals for the state supreme court (1901-03) and commissioner on uniform state laws for Nebraska (1904-07). He taught at Northwestern University, Chicago (1907-09), and at the University of Chicago (1909-10), after which he went to Harvard, where he was professor of law (1910-37) and dean of the law school (1916-36). On his resignation as dean, he received a "roving professorship" there and taught a variety of subjects until his retirement (1947). After World War II he spent some time in China reorganizing the Nationalist Chinese judicial system. Pound's theory of sociological jurisprudence required the adjustment of inherited legal codes and traditions to contemporary social conditions. The theory may have partially inspired, and was advanced by others as a justification of, President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal of the 1930s, which Pound nonetheless considered extreme.