Fineman named Ruth Bader Ginsburg Lifetime Achievement Award winner
In January of 2017, Fineman was also named a Life Fellow of the American Bar Association. Here she accepts her AALS award at the organization's annual meeting.
Fineman is a Robert W. Woodruff Professor of Law. An internationally recognized law and society scholar, she is a leading authority on family law and feminist jurisprudence. Fineman is founder and director of the Feminism and Legal Theory Project, which was inaugurated in 1984. She also serves as director of Emory’s Vulnerability and the Human Condition Initiative.
Her scholarly interests are the legal regulation of family and intimacy and the legal implications of universal dependency and vulnerability. Fineman’s solely authored publications include books - The Autonomy Myth: A Theory of Dependency, The New Press (2004); The Neutered Mother, the Sexual Family and other Twentieth Century Tragedies, Routledge Press (1995); and The Illusion of Equality: The Rhetoric and Reality of Divorce Reform, University of Chicago Press (1991)— in addition to dozens of journal articles and essays. Her essay in the Yale Journal of Law and Feminism, “The Vulnerable Subject: Anchoring Equality in the Human Condition,” formed the basis of Vulnerability: Reflections on a New Ethical Foundation for Law and Politics, published by Princeton University Press in 2013.
Fineman has received awards for her writing and teaching, including the prestigious Harry Kalvin Prize for her work in the law and society tradition. She has served on several government study commissions and teaches courses and seminars on family law, feminist jurisprudence, law and sexuality, and reproductive issues.
Dean Robert A. Schapiro said, “Martha Fineman is extremely well deserving of this extraordinary recognition. She is one of the preeminent legal scholars of our day, and her work has transformed many areas of scholarly inquiry, including legal theory and family law. Her groundbreaking projects are ongoing sources of inspiration and enlightenment for faculty and students at Emory and around the
globe. We are so proud that she is a member of the Emory Law community.”
The Ruth Bader Ginsburg Lifetime Achievement Award honors “an individual who has had a distinguished career of teaching, service, and scholarship for at least twenty years. The recipient should be someone who has impacted women, the legal community, the academy, and the issues that affect women through mentoring, writing, speaking, activism, and by providing opportunities to others.”
