The American Law Institute: A Centennial History

by Andrew S. Gold (Editor), Robert W. Gordon (Editor)

Overview

The centennial of the American Law Institute is a landmark event. A lifespan of one hundred years is significant for a law reform project. Most such initiatives terminate when they achieve their limited goals, they fail, or members lose interest when their funding runs out. Instead, the American Law Institute is the preeminent legal reform organisation in the United States and remains an enterprise in full vigour, with an enormous number of projects completed and an impressive array of projects in forward motion.

The American Law Institute: A Centennial History brings together an outstanding group of expert scholars, several of them current or former Reporters for the ALI Restatements of Law, to provide an in-depth scholarly history of the ALI, its role in legal reform, and the various ways it has impacted law in the United States. The resulting collection of essays provides original and important perspectives on both the ALI and its relevance for American Law.

This book offers a window into the course of legal thought over the past century and is a must-read for academics, practitioners, and all those interested in the way laws are shaped within the United States.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780197685341
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	04/25/2023
Pages:	504
Product dimensions:	9.29(w) x 6.37(h) x 1.51(d)

About the Author

Andrew S. Gold is Professor of Law at Brooklyn Law School and his primary research interests address private law theory, fiduciary law, and the law of corporations. He was previously the Bruce W. Nichols Visiting Professor at Harvard Law School; an HLA Hart Visiting Fellow at the University of Oxford; and a Fulbright Visiting Research Chair at McGill University. Professor Gold is also co-founder of the North American Workshop on Private Law Theory and a member of the American Law Institute.

Robert W. Gordon is Professor of Law, Emeritus, at Stanford law School. He is a legal historian specializing in the history of the legal profession, contract law, and the uses of history in legal argument. He began his teaching career at SUNY/Buffalo, Wisconsin and Stanford Law Schools, and has returned to Stanford after 16 years at Yale, where he was Chancellor Kent Professor of Law and Legal History. He is a past president of the American Society for Legal History and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Selden Society.

Table of Contents

Part I: Founding and Development of the American Law Institute
Chapter 1: The American Law Institute at 100: A Three Decade Personal Reflection, Roberta Ramo
Chapter 2: The Need for Restatement of the Common Law: A Long Look Back, David Seipp
Chapter 3: The Work of The American Law Institute in Historical Context, Kenneth S. Abraham & G. Edward White
Chapter 4: Restating the Law in the Shadow of Codes: The ALI in Its Formative Era, Deborah A. DeMott

Part II: Restatements
Chapter 5: Canon and Fireworks: Reliance in the Restatements of Contracts and Reliance on Them, Richard Brooks
Chapter 6: Conflict of Laws in the ALI's First Century, Symeon C. Symeonides
Chapter 7: The Restatements of Trusts - Revisited, Naomi Cahn, Deborah Gordon, Allison Tait
Chapter 8: Torts in the American Law Institute, John C. P. Goldberg
Chapter 9: The Restatement of Property: The Curse of Incompleteness, Thomas W. Merrill
Chapter 10: The International Law Profile of the ALI, George A. Bermann
Chapter 11: Constructing a Legal Field: The Restatement of the Law Governing Lawyers, W. Bradley Wendel
Chapter 12: A Short History of the Restatement of Restitution and Unjust Enrichment, Emily Sherwin

Part III: Codes
Chapter 13: The Uniform Commercial Code and the Ongoing Quest for an Efficient and Fair Commercial Law, Robert E. Scott
Chapter 14: From Restatement to Model Penal Code: The Progress and Perils of Criminal Law Reform, Kimberly Kessler Ferzan

Part IV: Principles
Chapter 15: Special Interests at the Gate: The ALI Corporate Governance Project, 1978-1992, William W. Bratton
Chapter 16: The ALI Principles of the Law of Family Dissolution: Addressing Family Inequality Through Functional Regulation, Linda C. McClain & Douglas NeJaime
Chapter 17: Aggregationists at the Barricades: Assessing the Impact of the Principles of the Law of Aggregate Litigation, Linda S. Mullenix

Part V: Restatements and Legal Theory
Chapter 18: Restatements and Realists, Robert W. Gordon
Chapter 19: The Restatements as Law, Frederick Schauer
Chapter 20: Restatements and the Common Law, Andrew A. Gold and Henry E. Smith

Editorial Reviews

"The American Law Institute: A Centennial History traces how the ALI, one of the most important legal institutions in the United States, continues to pursue its original mission of reducing complexity and promoting uniformity in American law..., contributors examine crucial debates and decisions that have shaped the organization." — Yale Law Report

From the Publisher