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Stanley L. Paulson

William Gardiner Hammond Professor of Law Emeritus

Professor Stanley L. Paulson is an internationally recognized authority on 20th-century European legal philosophy and legal theory with special attention to the Viennese legal philosopher Hans Kelsen, considered by many “the jurist of the century.” Professor Paulson delivered the academic keynote address at a session in the Upper House of the Austrian Federal Parliament honoring Kelsen on his 125th birthday. Professor Paulson, who writes and lectures in both German and English, has published more than 170 articles and reviews and, over the past 15 years, has delivered guest lectures at more than 80 universities on five continents. Recent lectures include Oxford, Melbourne, Brisbane, Sydney, Genoa, Vienna, Graz, Freiburg, and Cologne. Together with his wife, Bonnie Litschewski Paulson, he has published books with the Oxford University Press; they presently hold three contracts from the Press for books on and by Kelsen. In additional to his law degree, Paulson holds a Ph.D. in philosophy, as well as honorary doctorates from the faculties of law at the University of Uppsala in Sweden and from the University of Kiel in Germany, where he has continuing professional ties. He has been the recipient of numerous fellowships and post-doctoral awards here and abroad, granted by, among others, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Fulbright Commission (in Paris, Bonn, Vienna, and Jerusalem), the Max Planck Society, the German Research Endowment (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft), the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, and the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science. In 2003, he received the prestigious Humboldt Research Prize, awarded in Berlin, for “distinguished scholarship in the humanities.” In the summer of 2010, Paulson was in residence in Canberra at the Faculty of Law, Australian National University, as John Fleming Visiting Research Fellow.

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  • Education
    • B.A., University of Minnesota, 1964
    • M.A., University of Wisconsin – Madison, 1966
    • Ph.D., University of Wisconsin – Madison, 1968
    • J.D., Harvard University, 1972
    • LL.D., 2004, University of Uppsala, 2004
    • LL.D., University of Kiel, 2004
  • Courses
    • Jurisprudence
    • Constitutional Law