About Us

The Pound Civil Justice Institute is a national legal “think tank” created by pioneering members of the trial bar and dedicated to ensuring access to justice for ordinary citizens. Through its activities, the Institute works to give lawyers, judges, legal educators and the public a balanced view of the issues affecting the U.S. civil justice system.

The Institute was established in 1956 as the Roscoe Pound–American Trial Lawyers Foundation by a group of lawyers to honor and build upon the work of Roscoe Pound (1870–1964). Pound served as Dean of the Harvard Law School from 1916 to 1936, and is acknowledged as the founder of sociological jurisprudence–an interdisciplinary approach to legal concepts in which the law is recognized as a dynamic system that is influenced by social conditions and that, in turn, influences society as a whole.

Roscoe Pound, by Patricia Marshall Tate

Dean Pound was a true renaissance figure. Originally educated as a botanist, he maintained a lifelong interest in the natural and social sciences, jurisprudence, linguistics, and literature. He was admitted to the bar in his native state of Nebraska after completing only one year of Harvard Law School. His connection with the consumer bar was cemented when he was engaged in 1953 to serve as the editor–in–chief of the law journal of the National Association of Claimants‘ Compensation Attorneys (NACCA)–the precursor to the Association of Trial Lawyers of America (ATLA) and today‘s American Association for Justice (AAJ). After Dean Pound retired from that position, a group of NACCA members established the Foundation, and Pound himself was active in setting out its mission. He donated his home in Watertown, Massachusetts, to house the NACCA Law Journal offices and to preserve his extensive library. In 1969, the Foundation funded the construction of a new building in Cambridge to house itself and ATLA, and Chief Justice Earl Warren laid the corner stone.

Activities. Throughout its history, Pound has tailored its activities to the changing needs of the judiciary and the legal academic community, with emphases on adding balance to the often-lopsided debates on the U.S. civil justice system and supporting the principle of judicial independence. These activities have included:

• The annual Chief Justice Earl Warren Conferences (held between 1972 and 1989), in which jurists, academics, practitioners and other experts participated every year;
• Diverse publications, including (in the early-1970s) a series of films about the U.S. justice system; the quarterly Civil Justice Digest (1994-2003); and occasional books, monographs and reports on such diverse subjects as the American jury system, health care and the law, injury prevention in the workplace, the safety of the blood supply, the firearm industry, court system funding, and others;
• Support for academic research through grants to scholars working in areas of interest to the consumer bar;
• Law school symposia for legal academics on medical malpractice and mandatory arbitration;
• Recognition of achievements of law professors and students through awards in the areas of health care law, environmental law, and teaching trial advocacy; and
• The annual Forum for State Appellate Court Judges (see below).

The Judges Forum. The centerpiece of Pound‘s present program is the annual Forum for State Appellate Court Judges–a full–day educational program open only to judges, which was first held in 1992. The Forum provides a direct, intensive substantive experience, with original papers written by prominent academics, commentary by experts from both sides of the courtroom, and group discussion sessions. Judges attend as guests of the Institute, at no cost to themselves or their courts. The Forum is an opportunity for judges, legal scholars, and practicing attorneys to come together for an open conversation about major issues affecting civil justice in America. Each Forum's papers–and its subsequently published reports–are posted on the Pound Web site (www.poundinstitute.org) and are available for free downloading, providing continuing resources for the judiciary, academics, and practitioners. The Forum is the consumer bar‘s most significant outreach to the judiciary.

Our past forums have covered some of the most important issues that judges and the consumer bar face. Past topics have included separation of powers, the civil jury, secrecy in the courts, judicial independence, federalism, mandatory arbitration, rulemaking and electronic discovery, judicial selection, summary judgment, and the preemption doctrine. Selected Forum topics have also been reprised at several regional forums held in conjunction with the American Judges Association and other judicial organizations. The topic for the 2010 Forum (the 18th in the series) will be the effect of two recent decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court (Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly and Ashcroft v. Iqbal) and the defense-side campaign to induce American courts to abandon the “notice pleading“ regime that has served consumers so well since the 1930s.

The Pound Forum is accredited by all state mandatory CLE authorities, and we are told that the program “continues to give” long after judges return home from it. Typically, over 80% of the judges who attend the Forum rate it as “excellent” or “very good” on our evaluation forms. More specific written comments by judges are equally encouraging. Some examples:

• “The Forum is really the only place and time most judges have an opportunity to think about and discuss these topics in depth.”
• “Each year I return to my court more knowledgeable about ‘hot topics’ in the law.”
• “The Pound Institute seminars have consistently been the best of all the CLE programs I have attended during my 32 years on the bench.”
• Even a prominent defense lawyer who served as one of our faculty members wrote that “I was tremendously impressed! . . . I understand now . . . why the Institute‘s programs have such a good reputation. I found myself thinking about things I have ignored or taken for granted for years.”

Another important form of validation is the increasing frequency with which courts and academics cite Pound Forum materials in court decisions and journal articles.

Pound‘s Membership. The Pound Institute‘s work is supported by its members, who are called “Fellows.&rdquo Some of those on our roster of over 1,000 Fellows have been associated with the organization since its inception, and some are of the second or even third generation of the modern American trial lawyers. But in the fifty-plus years of Pound‘s existence, the Institute‘s membership and leadership have also come to reflect the increasing diversity of the nationwide consumer bar. It includes younger lawyers, women, minorities, and others historically less well represented in bar leadership roles. This diversity has strengthened our programs and has helped the Institute‘s work evolve–much as Dean Pound believed that the law itself must evolve.

Joining and Supporting the Pound Institute. Every member of the bar who is in good standing and who supports a strong American civil justice system is invited to become a Pound Fellow. There are several classes of membership, with dues starting as low as $95 per year for lawyers who have been in practice for five years or less. There are also opportunities to support Pound‘s activities beyond the regular dues structure through tax-deductible contributions. (Pound is a §501(c)(3) organization.) To inquire about becoming a Fellow or supporting Pound in other ways, please contact our executive director, Jim Rooks, by email jim.rooks@poundinstitute.org or phone (202-944-2841).

Through an emphasis on excellence in legal research and education, a commitment to open debate among all those who love the law, a practice of including accomplished practitioners from the defense side in our judicial education programs, and a focus on multidisciplinary explorations, the Pound Institute helps to continue the legacy of Dean Roscoe Pound–truly, one of the giants of American law.