After two years of private practice in estate planning and litigation in Chicago, Lindgren became a Project Director at the American Bar Foundation, a think tank specializing in Law & Society.
His articles, Counting Guns in Early America and Fall from Grace, both of which involve detailed analyses of the physical culture of early America as revealed in probate records, are among the most downloaded law review articles ever published.
Lindgren was a leading critic and investigator of charges of scholarly impropriety against historian Michael Bellesiles, who eventually resigned[1] and had his Bancroft Prize rescinded.
[4] Lindgren has long supported abortion rights and legally recognizing same-sex marriages.
[5][citation needed] James Lindgren's work on extortion laws was cited by the United States Supreme Court in Evans v. United States, 504 U.S. 255 [6] where the Court said "[a]s we explained above, our construction of the statute is informed by the common law tradition from which the term of art was drawn and understood.