Volkmar Gessner

Volkmar Gessner (9 October 1937 – 8 November 2014) was a German university professor and a socio-legal scholar.

After serving as a civil judge in Münster and Recklinghausen, he worked at the Max Planck Institut für ausländisches und internationales Privatrecht in Hamburg, where he headed a social science working group after 1975.

From 1980 to 1990, he also served as one of the directors of the newly founded Zentrum für Europäische Rechtspolitik in Bremen (Center for European Legal Policy).

After his retirement from the University of Bremen in 2003, he served until 2005 as Scientific Director of the International Institute for the Sociology of Law in Oñati, Spain.

Both in his publications and organizational work, Gessner made major contributions to the development of contemporary sociology of law.