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American Law Institute Annual Meeting records
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Held at: University of Pennsylvania: Biddle Law Library [Contact Us]3460 Chestnut Street, Biddle Law Library, Philadelphia, PA 19104-3406
This is a finding aid. It is a description of archival material held at the University of Pennsylvania: Biddle Law Library. Unless otherwise noted, the materials described below are physically available in their reading room, and not digitally available through the web.
Overview and metadata sections
The American Law Institute (ALI) was founded in 1923 in response to a perceived uncertainty and complexity in American law. Former Penn Law Dean William Draper Lewis was the Institute's first director, running the organization's operations out of his campus office. The ALI was conceived as a representative gathering of the American Bar (including Judges, Lawyers, and Law Professors) for the stated mission "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." To that end, the ALI has held annual meetings since its inception to adopt its restatements and other codification projects, discuss drafts, analyze pending legislation and aspects of the law, set policy, and initialize new projects.
The American Law Institute Annual Meeting Records, 1923-2005, include correspondence, addresses and remarks, reports on codification projects and other ALI-related activity, annual meeting programs, yearbooks, proceedings, and related records regarding activity at the ALI's annual meetings.
- Correspondence
- Addresses and Remarks
- Reports
- Programs and Yearbooks
- Proceedings
First shipment received from the American Law Institute in 1995.
Preliminary container list prepared by Melissa Backes, 1995-2005.
Processed and encoded by Jordon Steele, May 2008.
- Publisher
- University of Pennsylvania: Biddle Law Library
- Finding Aid Author
- Jordon Steele. Encoding by Eleanor Johns, 2015.
- Finding Aid Date
- 2011, 2015
- Access Restrictions
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None.
- Use Restrictions
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The archives reserves the right to restrict access to material of sensitive nature. Please contact the department for further information.
Collection Inventory
Chiefly routine correspondence, including letters of acceptance and regret to annual meetings. This series also includes invitations, correspondence surrounding the planning of events held at the annual meetings, including luncheons and receptions. Also represented is correspondence in which participants discuss the proceedings of annual meetings.
Member comments submitted in advance of the annual meeting regarding ALI projects, including on topics concerning complex litigation, restitution, the Federal Securities Code, and Product and Process Injuries.
Chiefly annual reports submitted to the ALI Council at the annual meeting. This series also includes special reports on the Youth Authority Program submitted by John Ellingston.
Programs of the annual meeting, which include general information about panels, events, and other activities. Also in this series are yearbooks that include a list of ALI members for a particular year as well as committee rosters.
Bound volumes that summarize the activity of each annual meeting.
Introductory addresses and prepared remarks delivered by people invited by the ALI to speak at the annual meetings. Speakers included William Draper Lewis, and Supreme Court Chief Justices Robert Jackson, Earl Warren, and Warren Burger.
Statistics, financial records, and other materials.
Correspondence and related material that was organized chronologically by year of meeting.