A Consumer Warning for the Restatement of Employment Law: READ CAREFULLY BEFORE APPLYING

On May 19, 2009, the membership of the American Law Institute (ALI) voted to approve the Restatement of the Law (Third) of Employment Law , 1 Chapters one, two, and four, subject to the approval of remaining Chapters not yet drafted, rejecting a motion to defer for further study. About two weeks before the vote, the ALI administration distributed an informational circular to its members that included the following terse announcement: "A group of academics called the Labor Law Group has generated an extensive set of comments on the Employment Law draft and has requested we inform members that those comments are available at http://www.law.tulane.edu/LaborLawGroupALIDocs.aspx." This dry notice barely hints at the depth of the underlying controversy or of what is at stake in it. The "group of academics" referred to, about thirty in number, are all specialists in labor and employment law. They form the membership of an organization founded more than fifty years ago, at the urging of then professor (later Secretary of Labor) Willard Wirtz, to modernize the teaching of labor law and, today, of employment law as well. The Group's members engage in collaborative efforts to produce casebooks and other teaching materials attuned to the latest economic, social, and legal developments. The Group thus mirrors the ALI as a self-selected, self-perpetuating educational body differing in one key regard: whereas the ALI from its founding eschewed any role in labor law--until, that is, it launched its Restatement project in 2003--labor and employment law is the sole ...