James Lindgren

James Lindgren is a professor of law at Northwestern University. Born in 1952 in Rockford, Illinois, Lindgren graduated from Yale College (1974, cum laude) and the University of Chicago Law School (1977), where he was an editor of the "University of Chicago Law Review".

After two years of private practice in estate planning and litigation in Chicago, Lindgren became a Project Director at the American Bar Foundation, a think tank specializing in Law & Society. Before coming to the Northwestern faculty in 1996, Lindgren taught at several law schools, including the Universities of Connecticut, Virginia, Texas, and Chicago, and Chicago Kent College of Law. Lindgren has published in most major law reviews, including the "Yale Law Journal" and the "Harvard, Columbia, Stanford, California, Northwestern, Georgetown, UCLA, University of Pennsylvania", and "University of Chicago Law Reviews".

Lindgren’s work spans a broad range of fields, though the majority of his recent work involves empirical research, public opinion, viewpoint diversity, estates, probate, aging, or retirement. Lindgren is a co-editor of "Wills, Trusts, & Estates" (Aspen), the leading textbook in that field. His articles, "Counting Guns" and "Fall from Grace", both of which involve detailed analyses of the physical culture of early America as revealed in probate records, are among the most downloaded law review articles ever published. His historical and doctrinal work on extortion was adopted by the Supreme Court in "US. v. Evans" (1992), which held that bribery behavior could be punished as extortion under the federal Hobbs Act. Lindgren is a cofounder of the Section on Scholarship of the Association of American Law Schools and a former chair of its Section on Social Science and the Law.

Lindgren was a leading critic and investigator of charges of scholarly impropriety against anti-gun scholar Michael Bellesiles, who eventually resigned [cite press release
title=Michael Bellesiles Resigns from Emory Faculty
url=http://www.news.emory.edu/Releases/bellesiles1035563546.html
publisher=Emory University
date=October 25, 2002 |accessdate=2008-03-11] and had his Bancroft Prize rescinded. [cite web |url=http://hnn.us/articles/1157.html
title=The Bancroft and Bellesiles
publisher=History News Network
date=December 14, 2002 |accessdate=2008-03-11] Later he investigated charges about a single-sentence claim in pro-gun scholar John Lott's book, "More Guns, Less Crime", concluding that Lott's behavior was "troubling".

Currently a Ph.D. student in Sociology at the University of Chicago, Lindgren blogs at the weblog "The Volokh Conspiracy".

References

External links

* [http://www.law.northwestern.edu/faculty/fulltime/Lindgren/Lindgren.html Northwestern website]
* [http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=692421 "Fall From Grace: Arming America and the Bellesiles Scandal", "Yale Law Journal" (2002)] The final version of the 56-page review documenting problems with "Arming America" may be downloaded from this page at SSRN.
* [http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=268583 "Counting Guns in Early America, Wm. & Mary Law Review" (2002)] Article may be downloaded from this page at SSRN.
* [http://volokh.com The Volokh Conspiracy] , a group weblog to which Lindgren contributes