Voss-Bascom Professor of Law; Professor of Sociology; Director of ILS
E-mail: hserlang@wisc.edu
Telephone: (608)263-7405
Office: Room 9109, Law School
Education:
Ph.D., University of California-Berkeley
J.D., University of Wisconsin Law School
Teaching Areas:
Law & Society
Marital Property
Trusts & Estates
Recently Taught Courses
733 Trusts & Estates
Biography
Howard S. Erlanger is Voss-Bascom Professor of Law and Professor of Sociology at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, where he has been on the faculty since 1971. He holds a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of California at Berkeley, and a J.D. from the University of Wisconsin. He teaches in the areas of wills, trusts, marital property, estate planning, and socio-legal studies.
Professor Erlanger is the recipient of a number of awards for his teaching and research, including the Emil Steiger Award for Distinguished Teaching from the UW-Madison, the Underkofler Award for Distinguished Teaching from the UW System, and the Stan Wheeler Mentorship Award from the Law & Society Association. He is an Academic Fellow of the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel, and a former President of the Law & Society Association. He currently serves as Director of the Institute for Legal Studies at the Law School and Director of the Center for Law, Society, and Justice in the College of Letters and Science, which houses the interdisciplinary Legal Studies major and the Criminal Justice Certificate Program.
Since 1982 Professor Erlanger has been Review Section Editor of Law and Social Inquiry, where he has solicited and edited over 500 article-length essays representing the great diversity of views in socio-legal studies. His own socio-legal research has primarily focused on the legal profession -- especially on the careers of lawyers in public interest practice and the socialization of law students -- and on topics related to dispute resolution and to organizational implementation of law. Before joining the law faculty, he also specialized in the sociology of interpersonal violence.
From1993 to 2008 Professor Erlanger has served as Reporter for a committee of the State Bar of Wisconsin that prepared a comprehensive revision of the Wisconsin Probate Code (1997 Wis. Act 188) which became effective January 1, 1999. A lengthy bill containing extensions and technical corrections (2005 Wis. Act 216) became effective in April 2006.
Selected Publications:
Marital Property, Estate Planning, and Probate
Guide to Marital Property Classification in Wisconsin, Second Edition. State Bar of Wisconsin (Roberson, Erlanger, and Langer).
Wisconsin's New Probate Code: A Handbook for Practitioners. University of Wisconsin Law School - Continuing Legal Education for Wisconsin.
Marital Property, Taxation, and Estate Planning in Wisconsin. University of Wisconsin Law School - Continuing Legal Education for Wisconsin.
American Legal Profession and Public Interest Law
"Law Student Idealism and Job Choice: Some New Data on an Old Question," 30 Law & Society Review 851 (Erlanger, Epp, Cahill, and Haines).
"Mobilizing Law Schools in Response to Poverty: A Report on Experiments in Progress," 43 Journal of Legal Education 199 (Erlanger and Lessard).
Making It and Breaking It: The Fate of Public Interest Commitment During Law School, University of Illinois Press. (Stover, edited by Erlanger).
"Towards a Sociology of Law School Admissions," 34 Journal of Legal Education 374.
"Socialization Effects of Professional School: The Law School Experience and Students' Orientation to School Reform," 13 Law & Society Review 11 (Erlanger and Klegon).
"Social Reform Movements and the Subsequent Careers of Participants: A Follow-up of Early Participants in the OEO Legal Services Program," 42 American Sociological Review 233.
Dispute Resolution / Law and Organizational Behavior
"The Endogeneity of Legal Regulation: Grievance Procedures as Rational Myth," 105 American Journal of Sociology 406. (Edelman, Uggen, and Erlanger).
"Internal Dispute Resolution: The Transformation of Civil Rights in the Workplace," 27 Law & Society Review 497. (Edelman, Erlanger, and Lande).
"Participation and Flexibility in Informal Processes: Cautions from the Divorce Context," 21 Law & Society Review 585. (Erlanger, Chambliss, and Melli).
Interpersonal Violence
"Estrangement, Machismo, and Gang Violence," 60 Social Science Quarterly 235.
"The Empirical Status of the Subculture of Violence Thesis," 22 Social Problems 280.
"Social Class and Corporal Punishment in Childrearing - A Reassessment," 39 American Sociological Review 68.
Essays on the Field of Sociolegal Studies
"Presidential Address: Organizations, Institutions, and the Story of Shmuel: Reflections on the 40th Anniversary of the Law and Society Association," 39 Law & Society Review 1.
"Is It Time for a New Legal Realism?" 2005 Wisconsin Law Review 335 (Erlanger, Garth, Larson, Mertz, Nourse, and Wilkins).
