About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline
LOG IN
LOG IN

32 S. Ill. U. L.J. [i] (2007-2008)

handle is hein.journals/siulj32 and id is 1 raw text is: SOUTHERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY LAW JOURNAL Volume 32 Fall 2007 ARTICLES INTRODUCTION: DID THE FIRST RESTATEMENT ADOPT A REFORM AGENDA? Patrick J. Kelley ........................................ 1 Articles Editors: Jeffrey D. Wright, Amber N. Jeralds, and Luke M. DeSmet. THE FIRST RESTATEMENT OF AGENCY: WHAT WAS THE AGENDA? Deborah A. DeMott ..................................... 17 Although the first Restatement of Agency provided a systematic account of its subject-no small accomplishment-its agenda was not reformist in any conventional sense. Indeed, the Reporters for Agency defended the inclusion of a number of common law rules explicitly characterized as unsound, outdated, even barbarous and shocking in extreme instances. Likewise, the first Agency Restatement lacked the intellectual boldness that characterized some Restatement work on other subjects. Agency's own history, the intellectual styles of the project's key participants, and institutional context all help explain the outcome. The article's account begins with the Reporters-Floyd Mechem and Warren Seavey-the characters most central to the Agency Restatement. Their professional and personal biographies help understand what Mechem and Seavey understood their work to be. This was, first and foremost, to construct and articulate a coherent account of agency doctrine and thereby establish their subject's position as a subject of legal scholarship. To succeed required surmounting Roscoe Pound's doubts about Agency's status and Oliver Wendell Holmes's assertion that Agency lacked cogent intellectual substance. The article also examines contributions from others who worked to produce the first Restatement: the project's Advisers, the ALI's first Director and its Council, and culminating debates on the project at ALI Annual Meetings. The prospect that the Agency Restatement would serve as a vehicle for substantive legal reform was substantially reduced by an unquestioned and narrow understanding of what should count as the law and by a circumscribed definition of the proper function of Restatements. The exclusion of statutes from the domain from which legal principle might be drawn aggravated the narrowness of what could be accomplished. The article, which relies for the most part on published sources (including minutes of Council meetings from the ALI's early days), also draws on unpublished minutes from meetings among the Reporters, their Advisers, and the ALI's Director. Articles Editor: Andrew J. Fisk. THE FIRST CONFLICTS RESTATEMENT THROUGH THE EYES OF OLD: As BAD AS ITS REPUTATION? Symeon C. Symeonides .................................. 39 The first Conflicts Restatement (1934) has been the favorite punching bag of every conflicts teacher, well before it was toppled by the conflicts revolution of the 1960s. Because history is often written by the victors, it is worth asking whether the Restatement and its drafter Joseph Beale were as bad as their reputation. This Article is not an attempt to rehabilitate them. Rather it is a necessary historical journey undertaken with all the trepidation of a traveler who expects the worst but hopes for at least some small pleasant surprises. It revisits Beale and the Restatement in the context of their own time-the 1920s-and examines Beale's life and work, the state of American conflicts law before him, the criticisms of his contemporaries, and the

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Short-term subscription options include 24 hours, 48 hours, or 1 week to HeinOnline.

Purchase Access

Contact us for annual subscription options:

Contact Us

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

Log In

profiles profiles most