ABSTRACT
The process of law reform in the United States is distributed across many institutions, public and private. This chapter concentrates on the role of lawyers operating through private, elite organisations, principally the American Law Institute. It describes the process of producing legislative proposals, in particular the restatements of law. The chapter then reviews the political economy literature that analyses the incentives directed at reporters, advisers, and the ALI Council, the most authoritative actor in the process. The literature predicts that these proposals generally will employ broad language that leaves significant discretion to downstream actors, such as government officials and judges. It recognises an exception in the case of projects that engage the attention and interests of concentrated, well-organised groups interested principally in the minimisation of legal risk rather than distributional issues. Projects influenced by such groups will contain more firm rules that reduce downstream discretion, emphasising legal reliability rather than flexibility.
