Law Commons^™

The Superfluous Rules Of Evidence, Jeffrey Bellin -- Professor Of Law

Vanderbilt Law Review

There are few American legal codifications as successful as the Federal Rules of Evidence. But this success masks the project's uncertain beginnings. The drafters of the Federal Rules worried that lawmakers would not adopt the new rules and that judges would not follow them. As a result, they included at least thirty rules of evidence that do not, in fact, alter the admissibility of evidence. Instead, these rules: (1) market the rules project, and (2) guide judges away from anticipated errors in applying the (other) nonsuperfluous rules.

Given the superfluous rules' covert mission, it should not be surprising that the …

The American Codification Movement, A Study Of Antebellum Legal Reform, Robert W. Gordon

Vanderbilt Law Review

Between 1820 and 1850 American legal commentators became obsessed with whether legislatures should codify, either in whole or in part, the common law of the American states. Indeed, "[a]lmost every law writer after 1825 felt compelled to include his views [on codification] in his works of whatever sort."" The enormous literature that emerged from this period survives today to fascinate modern legal historians, who seem to have developed their own obsession for the "codification" issue. As Lawrence Friedman has said, "The codification movement is one of the set pieces of American legal history." Charles M. Cook's "The American Codification Movement: …

The American Law Institute's Proposed Federal Securities Code, Editor In Chief

Vanderbilt Law Review

This issue of the Law Review represents Part Two of the symposium on the Proposed Federal Securities Code. This issue contains articles on federal-state relations under the Code; the impact of the Code on the Trust Indenture Act of 1939; the extraterritorial reach of the Code; and the effect of the Code on civil litigation. It is hoped that these articles will continue the fine work begun by Part One of the symposium, providing our readers with a thorough analysis of these additional sections of the Code and presenting recommendations for constructive changes to be considered in the final process …