RESTATEMENT
Restatement. One of several influential treatises published by the American Law Institute
describing the law in a given area and guiding its development. • The Restatements use a
distinctive format of black-letter rules, official comments, illustrations, and reporter’s notes.
Although the Restatements are frequently cited in cases and commentary, a Restatement provision
is not binding on a court unless it has been officially adopted as the law by that jurisdiction’s
highest court. Restatements have been published in the following areas of law: Agency, Conflict of
Laws, Contracts, Foreign Relations Law of the United States, Judgments, Law Governing
Lawyers, Property, Restitution, Security, Suretyship and Guaranty, Torts, Trusts, and Unfair
Competition. — Also termed Restatement of the Law.
“We speak of the work which the organization should undertake as a restatement; its object
should not only be to help make certain much that is now uncertain and to simplify unnecessary
complexities, but also to promote those changes which will tend better to adapt the laws to the
needs of life. The character of the restatement which we have in mind can be best described by
saying that it should be at once analytical, critical and constructive.” Committee on the
Establishment of a Permanent Organization for the Improvement of the Law (Elihu Root,
chairman), Report Proposing the Establishment of an American Law Institute, 1 ALI Proc. 14
(1923). [Blacks Law 8th]