She was an acknowledged authority on the pragmatism theories of Charles Sanders Peirce.
Although married at 17, she returned to college in the 1960s and received her PhD in semiotics from Brown University in 1978.
[4][5] During her postdoctoral time at Yale University (1979–1981), she introduced the concept of legal semiotics.
[5] She was a visiting professor at several institutions, including The College of William & Mary, Virginia.
Among her published works are High Fives, The Inverted Pyramid, The Law as the System of Signs and possibly her most significant work,[3] Peirce and the Mark of the Gryphon.