Maxime came from a family of several doctors: his maternal grandfather, Louis Bidault, received the 7th place in the 1842 Paris hospital internship rankings, and his great-uncle, Jacques Daviel, was the inventor of the cataract operation by extraction.

Laignel-Lavastine supported the initiative of his pupil, Isidore Simon, when he founded the Society of the History of Jewish Medicine[2] and he agreed to become honorary president.

His main and innovative activity was his teaching at the Institute of Criminology and Penal Law in Paris.

[6] He co-authored a psychiatry textbook and, with V. Vanciu and Étienne De Greeff, published a criminology text.

He also wrote a preface to a book by Alfred Adler, La Sens de la vie (Payot: ISBN 2-228-89531-8) (originally published in German as Der Sinn des Lebens, and published in its English translations variously as Social Interest: A Challenge to Mankind and Social Interest: Adler's Key to the Meaning of Life).