Mary Ann Glendon is a prolific and broad-ranging scholar who has also made important forays into public service on behalf of the United States and the Holy See. Her scholarly work can be best understood not as the systematic development or application of a particular jurisprudential school of thought, but rather as the painstaking work of pursuing a series of insights into the transitions to be made in law and in society, across a broad range of discrete topics, around the turn of the twenty-first century. Certain persistent and coherent themes have animated and united her work, especially ideas that resonate deeply with Catholic social thought. Across her scholarly writing on labor and property law, family law, the legal profession, constitutional law, and international human rights, she has remained persistently concerned with the role and importance of mediating institutions of civil society, especially families, with the systemic relationships between law and society, and with the unique importance of comparative methods to help arrive at a sound balance between universal ideals of justice, liberty, and dignity, on the one hand, and the value of the diversity and particularity of local communities, on the other.