Restatements of the Law

As the United States enjoys a robust common law system in many areas, it sometimes gets confusing for judges and lawyers alike to know exactly what the law is or has become over time. To combat this confusion, the American Law Institute periodically compiles all of the new decisions on a certain topic, determines what the majority view on each topic is, and publishes it all in a “restatement” of the law.

The American Law Institute, or ALI, is an organization of legal academics and practicing lawyers that convenes to examine the changes in the common law to various topics of law. The ALI’s main job is to determine the ‘black letter law’ from the cases, to indicate national trends in the common law, and, from time to time, to recommend what rule of law should be in place.

Generally speaking, the restatements on the whole are secondary authority, as opposed to primary authority. As such, they carry very little authority until they are adopted by the various courts throughout the United States. By March of 1995, the various restatements were cited 129,533 times.

History of Legal Restatement

In 1923, the American Law Institute first got its restatement procedures underway. The organization was supported by the Carnegie Corporation. Between 1923 and 1945, the ALI published its first restatements of Agency, Conflict of Laws, Judgments, Property, Torts, Contracts, among other legal areas. The ALI started creating its Second Restatements in the 1950s.

The revisions of the Second Restatement were undertaken to mirror changes and recent developments in the laws. They were also implementing a new format. The new format includes a larger commentary section as well as more illustrative materials.

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