Lauren Edelman

Lauren B. Edelman is the Agnes Roddy Robb Professor of Law and Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley. Previously, at UC Berkeley, she served as Director of the Center for the Study of Law and Society and as Chair and Associate Dean for Jurisprudence and Social Policy.

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 books include Working Law: Courts, Corporations and Symbolic Civil Rights. Her articles have appeared 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.

Before joining the Berkeley Law faculty, Edelman was a member of the sociology and law faculties at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. She received her B.A. from the University of Wisconsin, her M.A. from Stanford University, her J.D. from UC Berkeley School of Law, and a Ph.D. from Stanford University.