Американский юридический институт: история и деятельность

American legal advocacy group

The American Law Institute (ALI) is a research and advocacy group of judges, lawyers, and legal scholars established in 1923 to promote the clarification and simplification of United States common law and its adaptation to changing social needs. Members of ALI include law professors, practicing attorneys, judges and other professionals in the legal industry. ALI writes documents known as "treatises", which are summaries of state common law (legal principles that come out of state court decisions). Many courts and legislatures look to ALI's treatises as authoritative reference material concerning many legal issues. However, some legal experts and the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, along with some conservative commentators, have voiced concern about ALI rewriting the law. The ALI drafts, approves, and publishes Restatements of the Law, Principles of the Law, model acts, and other proposals for law reform. The ALI is headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. At any time, ALI is engaged in up to 20 projects examining the law. Some current projects have been watched closely by the media, particularly the revision of the Model Penal Code Sexual Assault provisions.

The movement that led to ALI's founding began in 1888. Law professor Henry Taylor Terry, then teaching in Japan, wrote that year to the American Bar Association (ABA) to recommend that it should solicit proposals for a "complete scientific arrangement of the whole body” of the law, and in response, the ABA set up a special committee on classification of law. James DeWitt Andrews, chair of the committee from 1901 to 1908, then launched his own Corpus Juris project in 1910, and in 1913, founded the American Academy of Jurisprudence (AAJ) to build the Corpus Juris jointly with the ABA. Andrews and his supporters proposed that the Corpus Juris would be systematically compiled with the assistance of leading experts in each field of American law. They argued that the Corpus Juris would be more comprehensive, authoritative, and accurate than existing treatises and digests like the West American Digest System, and they regarded the lawyers who worked on such digests, such as West Publishing's attorney editors, as second and third rate mediocrities. However, Andrews ran into staunch resistance from the very legal academics whom he needed to rally behind him to make such a project possible, especially John Henry Wigmore, dean of Northwestern University School of Law. Separately from the legal practitioners at the ABA, the legal academics at the Association of American Law Schools (AALS) formed committees to study the creation of a "national center for study of law and jurisprudence" in 1915, and a "juristic center" in 1916. The ABA finally pulled the plug on the hapless Andrews in 1923, who was still trying to rally support for the AAJ and what he was now calling a Codex Library, and threw its support behind the AALS's proposal for the founding of a "juristic center", which evolved into ALI. What seems to have finally united the ABA and the AALS behind the foundation of ALI in 1923 was the shared perception that "Andrews and his Academy of Jurisprudence should not be entrusted with the task of classifying and restating American law". The ALI was founded in 1923 on the initiative of William Draper Lewis, Dean of the University of Pennsylvania Law School, following a study by a group of prominent American judges, lawyers, and teachers who sought to address the uncertain and complex nature of early 20th century American law. According to the "Committee on the Establishment of a Permanent Organization for the Improvement of the Law," part of the law's uncertainty stemmed from the lack of agreement on fundamental principles of the common law system, while the law's complexity was attributed to the numerous variations within different jurisdictions. The committee recommended that a perpetual society be formed to improve the law and the administration of justice in a scholarly and scientific manner. The organization was incorporated on February 23, 1923, at a meeting called by the committee in the auditorium of Memorial Continental Hall in Washington, D. C. According to ALI's Certificate of Incorporation, its purpose is "to promote the clarification and simplification of the law and its better adaptation to social needs, to secure the better administration of justice, and to encourage and carry on scholarly and scientific legal work".

Restatements are essentially codifications of case law, common law judge made doctrines that develop gradually over time because of the principle of stare decisis. Although Restatements are not binding authority in and of themselves, they are highly persuasive because they are formulated over several years with extensive input from law professors, practicing attorneys, and judges. They are meant to reflect the consensus of the American legal community as to what the law is (and in some areas, what it should become). All told, the Restatement of the Law is one of the most respected and well used sources of secondary authority, covering nearly every area of common law. Restatements are primarily addressed to courts and aim at clear formulations of common law and its statutory elements, and reflect the law as it presently stands or might appropriately be stated by a court. Although Restatements aspire toward the precision of statutory language, they are also intended to reflect the flexibility and capacity for development and growth of the common law. That is why they are phrased in the descriptive terms of a judge announcing the law to be applied in a given case rather than in the mandatory terms of a statute. ALI recently completed the Fourth Restatement of U. S. Foreign Relations Law and the Principles of Election Administration.

Beginning with the Principles of Corporate Governance (issued in 1994), the American Law Institute has more recently undertaken intensive studies of areas of law thought to need reform. This type of analysis typically results in a publication that recommends changes in the law. Principles of the Law issued so far include volumes on Aggregate Litigation (2010), Family Dissolution (2002), Intellectual Property (2008), Software Contracts (2010), Transnational Civil Procedure (2006; cosponsored by UNIDROIT), and Transnational Insolvency: Cooperation Among the NAFTA Countries (2003). Work in the Principles of the Law series continues with projects covering Corporate Compliance, Data Privacy, Election Law, and Government Ethics. and is still working on the sexual assault and related offenses project that is re examining Article 213 of the Model Penal Code.

Membership in the American Law Institute is limited to 3,000 elected members who are judges, lawyers, and legal scholars from a wide range of practice areas, from all areas of the United States and from many foreign countries. The total membership of more than 4,200 includes ex officio members and life members who, after 25 years as an elected member, are no longer required to pay dues. New members must be proposed by an existing member, who writes a letter of recommendation, and seconded by two others. Proposals are evaluated by a Membership Committee that selects members based on several factors, including professional achievement, personal character, and demonstrated interest in improving the law. ALI members support the work of the institute, including attending annual meetings and other project conferences, joining members consultative groups for institute projects, and submitting comments on project drafts.

The institute is governed by its council, a volunteer board of directors that oversees the management of ALI's business and projects. Having no fewer than 42 and no more than 65 members, the council consists of lawyers, judges, and academics, and reflects a broad range of specialties and experiences.