The American Law Institute was organized in 1923 for the purposes of summarizing and defining, or restating, major legal doctrines. Its organization followed a study conducted by a group of prominent American judges, lawyers, and teachers known as "The Committee on the Establishment of a Permanent Organization for the Improvement of the Law." The Committee reported that the two chief defects in American law, it's uncertainty and its complexity, threatened the continuance of our common law system of expressing and developing the law. According to the Committee, part of the uncertainly of the law, as it then existed, was due to the lack of agreement among members of the profession on the fundamental principles of the common law. Other causes of uncertainty were reported as "conflicting and badly drawn statutory provisions," "lack of precision in the use of legal terms," and "the number and nature of novel legal cases."

The Committee's recommendation that a lawyers' organization be formed to improve the law and its administration led to the creation of The American Law Institute. The Institute's charter stated its purpose to be "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."

Among its recommendation, the Committee included the suggestion that the first undertaking of The American Law Institute be a direct attack on uncertainty. It proposed a restatement of certain phases of the law that would tell judges and lawyers what the law was. This plan produced the Restatement of the Law.

The formulation of a restatement of certain subjects of the law thus became the first endeavor of the Institute. Between 1923 and 1944, Restatements of the Law were developed for Agency, Conflict of Laws, Contracts, Judgments, Property, Restitution, Security, Torts, and Trusts. In 1952, the Institute started Restatement, Second - new editions of the original Restatements that update them, reflect new analyses and concepts, and expand upon reasons and authorities used in reaching the conclusions set forth. Restatement, Second, also treats subjects not included in the first Restatement, such as Landlord and Tenant and the Foreign Relations Law of the United States. A new Foreign Relations Law of the United States has inaugurated a third series of Restatements published in 1987. In addition, new Restatements on the Law governing Lawyers and Unfair Competition are being developed as part of Restatement third. the Restatement Case Citations are additional aids designed to enable lawyers to make best use of the Restatement.

Since 1923, the Institute has also drafted a Model Penal code, a Model Code of Evidence, a Model Code of Pre-Arraignment Procedure, a Model Land Development Code, and a Study of the Division of Jurisdiction Between State and Federal Courts, the last four items having been published in completed form. It has done extensive work in federal income, estate, and gift taxation and, with the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws, has prepared the Uniform Commercial Code. A codification of federal securities laws was completed in 1978, and a new examination of aspects of federal income taxation and studies of Corporate Governance and of Product and Process Injuries are now going forward.

How the Institute Works

• One person, an expert in the field of law to be considered and usually a legal scholar, is designated the Reporter for each subject undertaken. with the help of assistants, the Reporter does the basic research and prepares the initial draft of the material.
  
  
• This initial draft is submitted for suggestion and revisions to a small group of advisers - judges, lawyers, and law teachers - with special knowledge of the subject.
  
  
• The revised draft is then submitted for further analysis and consideration to the Council of the Institute, a group consisting of some fifty prominent judges, practicing lawyers, and law teachers. Here the draft can be referred either to the Reporter and his/her advisers for further consideration or to the annual meeting for its approval.
  
  
• When approved by the Council, the draft is presented as a "tentative" draft to an annual meeting of the entire membership for debate and discussion and is then made available for public distribution. The final product, the work of highly competent group scholarship, is thus subjected to the searching criticism of learned and experienced members of the bench and bar. It therefore has an authority greater than that imparted to any legal treatise - an authority more nearly on a par with that accorded to court decisions.
  
  
• In any Restatement or codification project, a series of tentative drafts is produced in this manner over a period of years. when the treatment of a subject has thus been completed, a proposed official draft, consisting of all prior tentative drafts and reflecting membership action, is submitted to the Council and the membership. Their approval completes that project and results in the official draft of The American Law Institute.
  
  
• Membership The Institute has an authorized elected membership of 2,500. It is made up of judges, lawyers, and law teachers, representing all areas of the United States. There is also an ex officio membership, consisting of the Chief Justice and Associate Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States, the Chief Judges of each United States Court of Appeals, the Attorney General and Solicitor General of the United States, the Chief Justice or Chief Judge of the highest court of each state, law school Deans, and the Presidents of the American Bar Association, each state bar association, and other prominent legal organizations.