Lynn Mather taught in Dartmouth's Government Department for 30 years. During that time, she served as Acting Director of the Rockefeller Center during Linda Fowler's sabbatical, chaired the Government Department, and co-founded the Women's Studies program. She received the Distinguished Teaching Award in 1995 and held the Nelson A. Rockefeller Chair in Government.
In 2002 she became Director of the Baldy Center for Law and Social Policy and Professor of Law and Political Science at the University at Buffalo. Mather is currently SUNY Distinguished Service Professor Emerita. She has continued her research on lawyers in articles comparing lawyers and lawmaking in different countries, examining the impact of international lawyer organizations on the regulation of lawyers, and through empirical study of attorneys in different legal fields. In addition to numerous articles, she has published five books: Lawyers in Practice: Ethical Decision Making in Context (2012); Private Lawyers and the Public Interest: The Evolving Role of Pro Bono in the Legal Profession (2009); Divorce Lawyers at Work: Varieties of Professionalism in Practice (2001, winner of the 2002 C. Herman Pritchett Award from the American Political Science Association); Empirical Theories About Courts (1983); and Plea Bargaining or Trial? The Process of Criminal-Case Disposition (1979).
A leading scholar in the interdisciplinary field of law and society, Mather served as president of the international Law and Society Association. She has taught courses in Legal Profession and Ethics, Statutory Interpretation, Law and Courts, Women and Law, and Courts and Social Change.
Mather received her undergraduate degree with honors from UCLA in political science and mathematics. She did graduate study in law and social science at the University of Wisconsin and in anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley. Her Ph.D. is in political science from the University of California, Irvine.