Law Commons^™

Codification And The Rise Of The Restatement+A5 Movement, Nathan M. Crystal

Washington Law Review

This article first critically examines and disputes the theses of Professors Gilmore and Friedman. It then presents an argument that the Restatement movement was, in fact, sympathetic to the goals of codification and, far from being a reaction to the challenge of realism, originated before realism developed as a coherent position. Both the Restatement movement and the codification movement of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries attempted to solve the problems of uncertainty, complexity, and consequent delay which plagued the legal system after the Civil War. Both were instituted, in substantial part, by the same segments of the bar, …