Pound, Roscoe (1870–1964)

US jurist. He was the leading exponent of what became known as sociological jurisprudence: the idea that the law must be sufficiently flexible to take into account social realities in order to provide the maximum of people's wants with the minimum of friction and waste. He regarded this as a form of social engineering that required the balancing of competing interests, classified as individual, public, and social interests. His main published work is the five-volume Jurisprudence.