PHILADELPHIA — The American Law Institute announced today that it will begin a new Restatement project, Restatement of the Law, Children and the Law.
This project will deal comprehensively with the legal regulation of children, rather than solely with family law matters. The project will examine the scope of parental authority, including decisions on health care, education, discipline, and religion; rights and responsibilities of unmarried fathers; duty to rescue and protect children from harm; and state intervention. It will also take on the issues of children in public schools; children in the justice system, including age boundaries on jurisdiction, interrogation, the attorney-client relationship, and mental-health screening, evaluation, and treatment; and children as legal persons, covering tort liability, free-speech rights, regulation of labor, children’s authority to make medical decisions, control over sexuality, and emancipation.
“We work diligently on each project to ensure consideration of diverse viewpoints and an unbiased examination of the law,” explained ALI Director Richard Revesz. “Our project participants include advisers, academics, judges, and other practitioners who are leaders in the fields we are examining, as well as ALI members who bring expertise from other fields. ALI’s thorough method of research and interpretation allows us to produce Restatements, Principles and Model Codes that are influential and trusted sources.”
Elizabeth S. Scott, Harold R. Medina Professor of Law, Columbia Law School, will serve as project Reporter. Richard J. Bonnie, Harrison Foundation Professor of Law and Medicine, University of Virginia School of Law; Emily Buss, Mark and Barbara Fried Professor of Law, University of Chicago Law School; Martin Guggenheim, Fiorello LaGuardia Professor of Clinical Law, New York University School of Law; Clare Huntington, Professor of Law, Fordham University School of Law; and Solangel Maldonado, Professor of Law, Seton Hall University School of Law, will serve as Associate Reporters.
“The law’s treatment of children has become increasingly complex and uncertain over the past few decades, in ways that will make the publication of an ALI Restatement particularly valuable to courts, legislatures and attorneys. An important function of the Restatement will be to reinforce the child welfare goal of legal regulation, and, at the same time, to incorporate the law’s contemporary recognition of children as legal persons.” said Scott. “The Restatement process will be informed by a growing body of developmental science and other social science research, an important trend in modern legal doctrine.”
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Project ideas are generated from many sources and reviewed initially by the ALI’s Director and Projects Committee. Once the ALI’s Council votes to begin a new project, the initial draft is prepared by project Reporters in close consultation with Advisers and an ALI Members Consultative Group (MCG). When the Director determines that the Preliminary Draft is ready for consideration by the Council, the Reporter prepares a Council Draft, incorporating revisions made in light of the previous review by the Advisers and MCG, for review, discussion, and approval by the Council. If the Council approves this draft, the Reporter prepares a Tentative Draft, incorporating any revisions directed by the Council, for review and approval by the membership at an Annual Meeting. Courts, legislatures, and government agencies have come to rely on the ALI’s work due to its careful drafting process, its independence and integrity, and the intellectual caliber of those who participate in the projects.
ALI Project Preliminary Drafts and Council Drafts are available to project participants and to the Council. Tentative Drafts, Discussion Drafts, and Proposed Final Drafts are publicly available. Only drafts approved by both the Council and the membership at an Annual Meeting represent The American Law Institute’s position on the subject and may be cited as representing the ALI's views in opinions or briefs.