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3 J. Pub. L. 292 (1954)
The Lawyer as a Social Engineer

handle is hein.journals/emlj3 and id is 294 raw text is: THE LAWYER AS A SOCIAL ENGINEER RoscoB POUND* The belief that law can be meaningfully integrated with other dis- ciplines has had many adherents. Dean Roscoe Pound has been the leading American spokesman for that notion, his sociological jurispru- dence having been termed the most comprehensive, coherent and origi- nal philosophy of law yet produced in the United States. The role which Dean Pound ascribes to the lawyer-that of social engineer-is part and parcel of his sociological jurisprudence. For the social engi- neer must, perforce, pay attention to and derive insights from other disciplines; within the framework of the discipline of sociological juris- prudence is room for the wisdom and learning of the sciences, both natural and social. Lawyers as social engineers would be problem- solvers in the real world. An example of such a problem is that out- lined in the following article: the necessity for a ministry of justice to provide for the improvement of law in action. Such an institution, if adopted, would be an outstanding example of lawyers using law for the purpose of engineering socially desirable results. The body politic, in like fashion to the human body, has its ills and ailments in need of therapeutic attention. Dean Pound's article calls significant attention to one of those ills. It is particularly appropriate that this article by Dean Pound introduces the symposium on law-science integration; Dean Pound is not only the leading exponent of sociological jurisprudence but is also a natural scientist, having received his Ph.D. in botany in 1897. LET me begin with two definitions. A lawyer is one whose calling it is to assist in the administration of justice; in the practical process of promoting and main- taining an ideal relation among men by adjusting their relations and ordering their conduct through an orderly and systematic application of the force of a politically organized society. By social engineer I mean, on the analogy of the industrial engineer, one whose calling it is to make a social process or activity achieve its purpose with a minimum of friction and waste. Law is the most highly developed form of social control. Since the sixteenth century the state, politically organized society, has been the paramount agency of control of each of us by the pressure of our fellow men and has operated through a regime of orderly and systematic application of force according to an authoritative body of models or patterns of adjudication and administrative determination. *University Professor Emeritus and former Dean of the Harvard Law School. Dean Pound's most recent book is Introduction to the Philosophy of Law (rev. ed. 1954).

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