Susan E. Lawrence is an Associate Professor of Political Science and Associate Dean for Undergraduate Education for the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Rutgers, New Brunswick.

SUSAN E. LAWRENCE, received her B. A. from Furman University and her M.A. and Ph.D. from the Johns Hopkins University. Her principal research interests are the Supreme Court's decision-making and doctrinal development processes, liberty and the counter-majoritarian problem, judicial decision-making, and participation and representation in adjudicatory institutions. Her current work focuses on Troxel v. Granville, 530 U.S. 57 (2000) and modern substantive due process doctrine as a way of examining the shifting contours of the boundary between public and private and the U.S. Supreme Court's evolving understanding of "family" as a separate sphere of sovereignty.

Lawrence was a Research Fellow in Governmental Studies at the Brookings Institution before joining the Rutgers faculty in 1985. Her dissertation, "The Poor in Court: The Legal Impact of Expanded Access," received the 1984 Alice Paul Award and the American Political Science Association's 1986 Edward S. Corwin Award. She was the recipient of the N.J. Governor's Fellowship in the Humanities in 1989-90 for her project, "Democracy and the Judicial Role." Her book, The Poor in Court: The Legal Services Program and Supreme Court Decision-Making, received the 1991 C. Herman Pritchett Award for the best book published during the preceding two years from the Law, Courts, and Judicial Process Section of the American Political Science Association. She has presented papers and participated in roundtables at the annual meetings of the Law and Society Association and the American Political Science Association. She has served on the governing bodies of both organizations as well as on a number of their subcommittees conferring awards. She serves as a Trustee on the New Jersey Lawyers' Fund for Client Protection by the appointment of the New Jersey Supreme Court.

As Vice Chair for Undergraduate Studies in the Department of Political Science from 1997 to 2005, she launched a model monthly T.A. training seminar series, developed extensive orientation materials for part-time lecturers and new faculty, and regularly participated in the graduate school's annual TA Orientation Conference. She is a recipient of the FAS Award for Outstanding Contribution to Undergraduate Education, Faculty of Arts and Sciences and during her term as Vice-Chair she garnered the 2002 University Award for Programmatic Excellence in Undergraduate Education for the Department of Political Science.

In August 2005, became Associate Dean for Undergraduate Education for the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. There she is involved in the implementation of the Task Force on Undergraduate Education's recommendations focusing on bringing uniformity to the academic requirements and standards governing the undergraduate curriculum in the liberal arts at Rutgers, New Brunswick through the establishment of a new undergraduate School of Arts and Sciences.

Her publications include: The Poor in Court: The Legal Services Program and Supreme Court Decision-Making (Princeton University Press, 1990), Law and Politics in the Supreme Court: Cases and Readings (1993, 2000); "Legal Services Before the Supreme Court," Judicature (February-March 1989), "Appealing: Who and Why?" Newsletter of the APSA (Spring 1989); "Participation Through Legal Mobilization," Polity (Spring, 1991); "Justice, Democracy, Litigation, and Political Participation," Social Science Quarterly (Fall 1991); "Due Process," in Paul Barry Clarke and Joe Foweraker, ed., Encyclopedia of Democratic Thought. London: Routledge, 2001; "Of Method and Mission" [in "A Law and Courts Symposium: Courts, Law, and the New (Historical) Institutionalism"]. Law and Courts Newsletter of the American Political Science Association, 9, 1 (Spring 1999): 16-17; "Introduction to the Symposium: The Supreme Court and the Attitudinal Model," editor's introduction. Law and Courts Newsletter of the American Political Science Association, 4, 1 (Spring 1994): 3-12; and "Substantive Due Process and Parental Rights: From Meyer v. Nebraska to Troxel v. Granville." The Journal of Law and Family Studies, 8(2006):71-118; as well as numerous book reviews. She is a co-editor of two volumes consisting of papers presented by leading scholars at the 1994 and 1995 Law and Society Summer Institutes, which she and her co-editors planned and organized: Everyday Practices and Trouble Cases (Northwestern University Press, 1998), and Crossing Boundaries: Traditions and Transformations in Law and Society Research (Northwestern University Press, 1998).