Maynard Pirsig

Maynard E. Pirsig LLD (January 9, 1902 – February 6, 1997) was an American legal scholar and academic.

He was a University of Minnesota Law School professor, from 1933 to 1970, also serving as the department's dean from 1948 to 1955. Pirsig also served as professor at the William Mitchell College of Law from 1970 to 1993. He had one of the longest careers of any legal academic.

According to Minnesota Associate Supreme Court Justice, Lawrence Yetka, "Maynard had his hand in every significant improvement in the legal and judicial system in Minnesota for 60 years."

Pirsig was born in 1902 in Kossuth County, Iowa, to Gustav and Amelia Pirsig. He was raised on his parents' farm, speaking only German until he began attending school. Following a courtship of several years, he married Harriet Sjobeck in 1925. They had three children, one of whom was Robert M. Pirsig, author of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.

Pirsig earned a bachelor's degree in 1923 University of Minnesota, and a LL.B degree in 1925 from the University of Minnesota Law School. He attended graduate courses in law at Harvard University from 1931-1932, studying under Roscoe Pound and Felix Frankfurter. During 1932-1933, as further preparation for developing a course in judicial administration, he spent one year in England with his wife and son Robert, studying the English legal system.

Pirsig's pathbreaking casebook on Judicial Administration gave birth to a new subject in the field of law. With regards to his Judicial Administration course, "The hope, one would gather, was that students thus equipped with a challenging attitude, a reformer's zeal for ideal solutions, and a full arsenal of possibilities for innovations would continue to confront the judicial system with challenges to ever more humane conduct that alone will guarantee it's continuing legitimacy."

In 1934, Pirsig originated the Judicial Administration course at the University of Minnesota's law school, which he taught throughout his career. It was meant to be "A course that strove to encompass all subjects - from justice and precedence, to trial techniques and the organization of the courts - pertinent to developing well rounded lawyers". He also taught courses on pleading, ethics and criminal law. Pirsig also introduced the first course on personnel training in correctional institutions, at the university.

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