The American Law Institute: Justice Cardozo's Ministry of Justice?

Abstract

This paper explores an influential reform agenda - the notion of a Ministry of Justice - advanced by Justice Benjamin Nathan Cardozo, one of the American Law Institute's founding members. The article in which Justice Cardozo introduced the concept of a Ministry of Justice was published in the Harvard Law Review the very month that the exploratory committee was formed that ultimately recommended the formation of the American Law Institute, and two years before the Institute itself was founded. This article explores the extent, if any, to which the reform agenda that Justice Cardozo propounded in this famous article was fulfilled by the founding of the Institute.

Keywords: American Law Institute, Cardozo, Restatement, law reform, Ministry of Justice