Charles Fried

Beneficial Professor of Law

Biographical Statement

Educated at Princeton, Oxford and Columbia Law School, Charles Fried, the Beneficial Professor of Law, has been teaching at Harvard Law School since 1961. He was Solicitor General of the United States, 1985-89, and an Associate Justice of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, 1995-99. His scholarly and teaching interests have been moved by the connection between normative theory and the concrete institutions of public and private law. During his career at Harvard he has taught Criminal Law, Commercial Law, Roman Law, Torts, Contracts, Labor Law, Constitutional Law and Federal Courts, Appellate and Supreme Court Advocacy. The author of many books and articles, his Anatomy of Values (1970), Right and Wrong (1978), and Modern Liberty (2006) develop themes in moral and political philosophy with applications to law. Contract as Promise (1980), Making Tort Law (2003, with David Rosenberg) and Saying What the Law Is: The Constitution in the Supreme Court (2004) are fundamental inquiries into broad legal institutions. Order & Law: Arguing the Reagan Revolution (1991) discusses major themes developed in Fried's time as Solicitor General. In recent years Fried has taught Constitutional Law and Contracts. During his time as a teacher he has also argued a number of major cases in state and federal courts, most notably Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, in which the Supreme Court established the standards for the use of expert and scientific evidence in federal courts.

Appointments

• Assistant Professor of Law, 1961
• Professor of Law, 1965
• Carter Professor of General Jurisprudence, 1981-87
• US Solicitor General, 1985-89
• Carter Professor of General Jurisprudence, 1989-95
• Distinguished Lecturer on Law, 1995-99
• Associate Justice, Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, 1995-99
• Carter Professor of General Jurisprudence, Emeritus, 1995-99
• Beneficial Professor of Law, 1999

Education

• Princeton University A.B. 1956
• Oxford University B.A. 1958
• Columbia University Law School J.D. 1960
• Oxford University M.A. 1960

Research Interests

• Constitutional Law
• Expert Evidence
• Legal and Moral Philosophy

Subject Areas for Accepting Press Inquiries

• Civil Rights and Liberties
• Civil Rights and Litigation
• Civil Rights Legislation
• Constitutional Law
• Employment Law (individual)
• Free Speech/First Amendment
• Supreme Court

Subject Areas for Supervising Written Work

• Constitutional Law
• Expert Evidence
• Legal and Moral Philosophy

Representative Publications

• Gregory, Fried & Charles Fried. Because It Is Wrong: Torture, Privacy and Presidential Power in the Age of Terror (W.W. Norton & Co. 2010).
  
• Fried, Charles. Modern Liberty and the Limits of Government (W.W. Norton and Company 2006).
  Full text: AMAZON (Purchase)
  
• Fried, Charles. Saying What the Law Is: The Constitution in the Supreme Court (Harvard University Press 2004).
  Full text: AMAZON (Purchase)
  
• Fried, Charles & David Rosenberg. Making Tort Law: What Should Be Done and Who Should Do It (AEI Press 2003).
  Full text: AMAZON (Purchase)
  
• Fried, Charles. "An Unreasonable Reaction to a Reasonable Decision" in Bush v.Gore: The Question of Legitimacy (Yale University Press, 2002).
  Full text: AMAZON (Purchase)
  
• Fried, Charles. "Five to Four: Reflections on the School Voucher Case," 116 Harvard Law Review 163 (2002).
  Full text: LEXIS || WESTLAW
  
• Fried, Charles. "Perfect Freedom or Perfect Control?" 114 Harvard Law Review 606 (2000).
  Full text: WWW
  
• Fried, Charles. "Perfect Freedom, Perfect Justice," 78 Boston University Law Review 3 (1998).
  Full text: HEIN (Harvard Users) || HEIN || LEXIS || WESTLAW
  
• Fried, Charles. Order and Law: Arguing the Reagan Revolution -- A Firsthand Account (New York: Simon & Schuster 1991).
  Full text: AMAZON (Purchase)
  
• Fried, Charles. Contract As Promise: A Theory of Contractual Obligation (Harvard University Press 1981).
  Full text: AMAZON (Purchase)
  

Bibliography

View bibliography