Harold J. Berman served as the Robert W. Woodruff Professor of Law at Emory University and as Co-Director of the World Law Institute until his death in 2007.

He also was James Barr Ames Professor of Law, emeritus, at Harvard University, where he taught from 1948 to 1985 and again in 1986 and 1989. His courses included World Law and Comparative Legal History (The Western Legal Tradition).

Professor Berman was the author of 25 books and more than 300 articles. His prize-winning book Law and Revolution: The Formation of the Western Legal Tradition (1983) has been published in German, French, Chinese, Russian, Polish, Spanish, Italian, and Lithuanian translations. His other books included Justice in the U.S.S.R. (revised edition, 1963), Faith and Order: The Reconciliation of Law and Religion (1993) and Law and Revolution II: The Impact of the Protestant Reformations on the Western Legal Tradition (2003). He lectured in many countries to university audiences of faculty and students and to groups of specialists in various academic disciplines; principally legal scholars, historians, sociologists, philosophers, theologians, and political scientists.

He was a Fellow of The Carter Center of Emory University, with special interests in U.S.-Russian relations. He served on the Executive Committee of the Russian Research Center of Harvard University from 1952 to 1984, and was a member of the Legal Committee of the U.S.-U.S.S.R. Trade and Economic Council from 1974 to 1991.

In 1961-62 Professor Berman spent a year in Moscow, U.S.S.R., as a guest scholar of the Institute of State and Law of the U.S.S.R. Academy of Sciences and a lecturer on American law at Moscow University. In the spring semester of 1982 he was again at Moscow State University as a Fulbright lecturer on American law. He has visited Russia more than forty times since 1955.

Professor Berman was active in promoting the teaching of law in the liberal arts curriculum. His book The Nature and Functions of Law: An Introduction for Students of the Arts and Sciences (1958; 6th ed., 2004, with William R. Greiner and Samir N. Saliba) is widely used in college and business school courses.

He was a co-founder and member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Law and Religion and served on the Board of Directors of the Council on Religion and Law since its formation in 1975. In 1994 he was awarded the annual Journal of Law and Religion Award at Hamline University School of Law in St. Paul, Minnesota, in recognition of his lifetime contributions in the field of law and religion.