Austin Sarat is William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Jurisprudence Political and Science at Amherst College and Justice Hugo L. Black Senior Faculty Scholar at the University of Alabama School of Law. He is author or editor of more than sixty books, including When the State Kills: Capital Punishment and the American Condition; Something to Believe In: Politics, Professionalism, and Cause Lawyers (with Stuart Scheingold); The Blackwell Companion to Law and Society; and most recently The Road to Abolition?: The Future of Capital Punishment in the United States (with Charles Ogletree Jr). Sarat is editor of the journal Law, Culture and the Humanities and of Studies in Law, Politics and Society. In 1997, he received the Harry Kalven Award, given by the Law and Society Association for distinguished research on law and society. In 2004, he received the Reginald Heber Smith Award, given biennially to honor the best scholarship on the subject of equal access to justice. In 2006, the Association for the Study of Law, Culture and the Humanities awarded him the James Boyd White Prize for distinguished scholarly achievement in recognition of his 'innovative and outstanding' work in the humanistic study of law. In 2009 he received the Stan Wheeler Award from the Law & Society Association for distinguished teaching and mentoring.