ALI publishes Restatements of
the Law in several areas.
Blawgletter’s cheeks flushed when word came today that The American Law Institute elected a new crop of members. They included us! Hooray!!
What does ALI do, you say? Well, its 3,000 members — judges, lawyers, and teachers — meet annually and work throughout the year in groups on restatements of law, model codes, principles of law, and other projects. The Institute also teams with the American Bar Association on continuing legal education programs as ALI-ABA.
A founder of ALI, Benjamin Cardozo, explained the restatement idea in 1923:
When, finally, it goes out under the name and with the sanction of the Institute, after all this testing and retesting, it will be something less than a code and something more than a treatise. It will be invested with unique authority, not to command, but to persuade. It will embody a composite thought and speak a composite voice. Universities and bench and bar will have had a part in its creation. I have great faith in the power of such a restatement to unify our law.
Blawgletter feels so chipper and enthusiastic that we’ve already signed up to work on a project, Principles of the Law of Aggregate Litigation. Happy happy joy joy.
