Robert Granfield, PhD, is Professor of Sociology and Criminology at the University at Buffalo. He has been a Fulbright Research Professor at University of Ottawa School of Law, a Visting Scholar at Middlebury College, and a Visiting Fellow at Harvard Law School. From 2014 to 2025, he served as UB’s Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs, overseeing the promotion and tenure of hundreds of faculty, advancing recognition programs, and implementing new policies to make academic evaluation more equitable and inclusive. He also co-chaired the President’s Advisory Council on Race Implementation Subcommittee on Scholarship, Tenure, and Recognition, created the Civic Engagement Fund to support community-based research, and strengthened faculty mentoring across career stages.

Dr. Granfield’s scholarship focuses on law and legal institutions, particularly the legal profession and global pro bono legal work, as well as the sociology of addiction and recovery. His work has been widely cited for reshaping the way recovery from addiction is understood. He co-developed the influential concept of Recovery Capital, now used internationally to guide policy and practice, and has conducted NIH-funded research to measure and expand its application. He his author or co-editor of six books including Making Elite Lawyers: Visions of Law at Harvard and Beyond (Routledge Press, 1992), Coming Clean: Overcoming Addiction without Treatment (NYU Press, 1999), Private Lawyers in the Public Interest: The Evolving Role of Pro Bono in the Legal System (Oxford University Press, and Expanding Addiction: Critical Essays (Routledge Press, 2015). He has published more than 80 articles in journals such as Social Problems, Sociological Forum, Sociological Quarterly, Law and Society, Journal of Drug Issues, Drug and Alcohol Dependence, and Addiction Research and Theory. His work has been supported by the National Institute of Health, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the Woodrow Wilson Foundation among others. He continues to conduct research on global pro bono legal work as well as on the expansion and application of Recovery Capital.

• PhD, Sociology, Northeastern University, 1989
• MA, Sociology, Northeastern University, 1983 
• BA, Sociology and Education, Southeastern Massachusetts University, 1977

Inception to Integration: The Theoretical Roots and Institutional Growth of Recovery Capital, The Handbook of Recovery Capital, Bristol University Press, 2025.

Longitudinal trajectories in recovery capital and associations with substance use among adult drug treatment court clients.” Drug and Alcohol Dependence, 2024.

Development and psychometric properties of the Multidimensional Inventory of Recovery Capital (MIRC). Drug and Alcohol Dependence, 2023.

Altruism at Work: Toward an Integrated Theory of Voluntary Service among Professionals,” Law and Social Inquiry, 2023.

When Altruism is Remunerated: Understanding the Drivers and Targets of Voluntary Service among Lawyers,” Law and Society Review, 2022

Pro Bono in Canada, Global Pro Bono: Causes, Consequences, and Contestation, Cambridge University Press, 2022