Professor Galanter, one of the most important figures in law & society scholarship over the past half-century, was emeritus at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, where he had taught since the late 1970s. Here is the memorial notice from the UW Madison Dean:

It is with great sadness that I write to inform you of the passing of our colleague Marc Galanter early this morning.   As many of you know, Marc was the John and Rylla Bosshard Professor of Law and South Asian Studies, the author of many books and articles, and a treasured member of the Law School community.

Marc was a legendary scholar and teacher, to such a degree that it’s hard to know where to begin in summarizing his life’s work. With 6,751 citations (according to HeinOnline), Marc is UW Law’s most cited scholar ever.  Very few law professors anywhere have had the impact that Marc has, and on so many different subjects. Our digital repository includes 188 books, articles, chapters, and other scholarly works that Marc published over his career, between 1959 and 2025.  Many of them are about how the legal system, in the U.S. and elsewhere, actually functions in practice. While there are many people who embody our Law in Action tradition, it’s hard to think of a better exemplar than Marc.

 A leader of the law and society movement, Marc’s most famous and perhaps most influential article is Why the “Haves” Come Out Ahead: Speculations on the Limits of Legal Change, published in 1974. One study found this be the 37^th most cited law review article of all time, and Marc was among a very small number of scholars to have two in the top 100.  Like all Marc’s work, it is nuanced in its exposition of the problem at hand, identifying a distinction between “one-shotters” and “repeat-players” that partly (though not completely) overlaps with inequalities in resources.

Another must-read from Marc is Lowering the Bar: Lawyer Jokes and Legal Culture, a study of what lawyer jokes reveal about the U.S. legal system and society of which we are part. Like much of his work, the book questions conventional wisdom to expose the complex relationship between people and legal institutions.  If Marc’s work seldom offers easy answers, it always helps the reader better understand the web of forces that create the reality in which lawyers, clients, and other members of society operate.   

Beyond the numbers and canonical works, Marc’s impact has been – and long will be – felt through his relationships with so many colleagues and students over the years. On reviewing the many tributes to Marc written during his life, I’m struck by his openness to taking a personal interest in students and early-career scholars, in ways that made a transformative difference to them. This is an example that all of us might strive to emulate. 

My first exposure to Marc came years before I met him in person, through his book Competing Inequalities, a study of compensatory discrimination to benefit historically disadvantaged groups in India. This is one of his many works he wrote on India’s legal system over the course of his career (in fact, both the first and the last listed publication in the repository are on India).  When I met Marc in person years later, I think he was pleasantly surprised that I’d become acquainted with him through his work on India, which included many years studying the Bhopal disaster.  

The past few years have been difficult ones for Marc and his wife Eve. As she, their three children, and the rest of their family mourn Marc’s passing, I hope they will be comforted by their knowledge of the positive difference he made in the lives of so many of us, not to mention the way he has shaped how we think about law’s place in the world. 

The family informs me that the service for Marc will take place this Monday starting at 4 pm, at Cress Funeral on Speedway, followed by Shiva at the Galanter home around 5:30. I’ll provide more details when they’re available. 

May his memory be a blessing.

With warm regards,

Dan

Daniel P. Tokaji

Fred W. & Vi Miller Dean and Professor of Law

University of Wisconsin Law School

(Thanks to Jayanth K. Krishnan for the information.)