Relation of the Federal Government to Research 



163 



From its outset the American Legislators' Associa- 

 tion has emphasized its fnnction as a body to aid the 

 members of tlie State legislatures in securing the data 

 needed by tliem in the handling of their legislative 

 problems; and to this end, it has sought to coordinate 

 the work of the legislative reference services existing 

 in the majority of the States. To quote from the Booh 

 of the States (vol. 11, p. 112) : 



From Its inception, one of tlie aims of the Association was 

 to supply the legislators with information which would aid 

 them in the solution of the problems which faced them as 

 lawmakers. » • * The Interstate Reference Bureau was 

 established as a clearing house to which legislators and other 

 State officials could send requests for authoritative data on 

 their specific legislative or administrative problems. In addi- 

 tion to this service, the Association was keenly interested in the 

 promotion of the establishment of legislative reference bureaus 

 in each of the States. 



The inquiry service was especially popular, and Federal, 

 State, and local officials availed themselves of it. On the 

 whole, there was no dearth of authoritative data, but there 

 was a lack of an established channel through which this in- 

 formation could be made available to the individual legislator. 

 This Bureau, and the legislative reference bureaus provided 

 facilities through which he could conveniently acquaint him- 

 self with the principles or standards set up by specialists, with 

 the most reliable, up-to-date statistics, and with the experience 

 of other States as to problems to be met and the best technique 

 for meeting them." 



National Conference of Commissioners 

 on Uniform State Laws 



The National Conference of Commissioners on Uni- 

 form State Laws had its origin in the appointment in 

 1889 by the American Bar Association of its Com- 

 mittee on Uniform Laws, and the successive creation 

 by the States of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws 

 to cooperate with each other in the drafting and recom- 

 mending for adoption by the States of model laws, 

 the first State to take action in this way being New 

 York, which passed the necessary legislation in 1890. 

 These Commissioners of the several States effexited an 

 organization known as the National Conference of 

 Commissioners on Uniform State Laws, the first formal 

 meeting of wliich was held in 1892. These meetings 

 are held in connection with the annual meetings of the 

 American Bar Association. The Conference is an 

 official body since it is composed of members appointed 

 by the several State governments and its expenditures 

 are chiefly met from appropriations made by the sev- 

 eral State lejjishitures. 



To date, the Conference has drafted over 50 laws, 

 many of which have been very generally adopted by 

 the States." 



American Law Institute 



The American Law Institute was organized at a con- 

 ference held in Washington, D. C., in 1923, its articles 

 of incorporation stating its purpose to be "the clarifica- 

 tion and simplification of the law and its better adap- 

 tation to social needs, to secure the better administration 

 of justice and to encourage and carry on scholarly and 

 scientific legal work." In point of fact, the Institute 

 has directed its efforts almost wholly to the attempt to 

 restate the common law in a manner that will facilitate 

 the acquisition of knowledge regarding it and that will 

 be generally accepted by the bar and the courts as 

 an authoritative statement of the law. It is liberally 

 financed by the Carnegie Corporation, supplemented by 

 grants from the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Founda- 

 tion. 



As in the case of the National Conference on Uniform 

 State Laws, the Institute proceeds by taking up one 

 by one specific legal topics. Its first restatement, after 

 9 years of continuous labor by a reporter, aided by a 

 council, and the preparation of numerous drafts for 

 consideration by the Institute, was adopted and pro- 

 mulgated in 1932. The Director of the Institute, Dr. 

 William Draper Lewis, in a contribution to the Novem- 

 ber 1932 issue of the American Bar Association Journal 

 gives the following interesting descriiDtion of the work 

 which incidentally serves to make known in an excep- 

 tionally clear way the fundamental nature and objec- 

 tives of the Institute's work. 



The restatement of contracts and other restatements that will 

 follow it are essentially different from any other legal work. 

 The restatement is not a digest of decisions or statutes and it 

 is not a legal encyclopedia, treatise, or monograph. All other 

 works on the common law cite and discuss the decisions of 

 the courts. Not being a legal work with an author or group of 

 authors, the restatement does not need to cite decisions or 

 other authority. To do so would be inconsistent with the fact 

 that it is itself an authority because it represents the opinion 

 of the profession as organized in the Institute of what the law 

 is. At the same time, though the rules of law stated are 

 expres.sed in the orderly form of a scientific code, to have legis- 

 latures give it the rigidity of a statute would destroy one of 

 its chief purposes wliich is to preserve the common law system 



" For fuller Information regarding the American Legislators' Asso- 

 ciation and its subordinate and afSliated agencies, see : The Book of 

 the States, vol. I. 1935, and vol. II, 1937. and the monthly journal of 

 the association. The State. 



Tor Information regarding the work of this organization, see: 

 Reports of the Annual Meetings of the American Bar Association ; 

 Reports of the Proceedings of the National Conference of Commissioners 

 on Uniform Stale Laws : Manual, National Conference of Commissioners 

 on llniform State Laws, and W. Brook Graves, Vniform State, Action: 

 A Possible Substitute for Centralization, 1934. For copies of the laws 

 drafted by the Conference and data regarding their adoption by the 

 States, see : Uniform Laws Annotated, a compilation published by the 

 Edward Thompson Co., in eleven volumes, which is kept to date by 

 annual cumulative pocket supplements. 



