A developmental history of the American Psychology-Law Society

The American Psychology-Law Society, now in its 22nd year, began in 1969 after an, organizational meeting in 1968. It played a role in the creation of Division 41 (Psychology and Law) of the American Psychological Association in 1981. The Division became the American Psychology-Law Society/Division 41 with the merger of the two organizations in 1984. The present narrative history of the Society's development is based on information from newsletters, documents of Society business, and recollections communicated to the author by individuals who played critical roles in the Society's development. The history is organized according to five stages, with special attention to competitive and cooperative efforts of subgroups as they sought to define the directions and purposes of the Society.This article is based on my address to the American Psychology-Law Society/Division 41 at the convention of the American Psychological Association in Boston (August 12, 1990) at the conclusion of my presidency of AP-LS/Division 41. I wish to thank several people who contributed to this history by offering me their memories, their files, and/or their reflections on earlier drafts of this paper: Gordon Bermant, Donald Bersoff, Stanley Brodsky, Shari Diamond, Sheila Dietz, Robert Howell, Felice Levine, Paul Lipsitt, Gary Melton, John Monahan, Stephen Morse, Michael Nash, Steven Penrod, Michael Saks, Bruce Sales, Saleem Shah, June Louin Tapp, and Jay Ziskin. The scholarship and organizational support of many well-known colleagues who are not mentioned in the course of this narrative history significantly influenced the development of the Society and the field of psychology and law during the past two decades. In my early drafts however, I found that a narrative that attempted to mention the majority of them would produce a fragmented work through which the flow of events in the Society's history would not be discerned easily. In selecting who to identify, I focused primarily on individuals who contributed to the organization as visible leaders and who, therefore, would form a cast of characters that would provide the best medium for telling the story of the Society. I have developed and am maintaining a cumulative archival repository (which will be the possession of AP-LS/Division 41) for documents and oral communications related to the history and business of AP-LS/Division 4L, Anyone having pre-1988 copies of newsletters of AP-LS or AP-LS/Division 41, or other documents describing the business of these organizations, are encouraged to send them to me, either for domation or to be photocopied and returned.