Unification of Law in the United States: an Updated Sketch (original) (raw)

1996, Uniform Law Review - Revue de droit uniforme

Fifty years ago Professor Hessel Yntema sketched the progress of the unification of law in the United States. 1 This progress, he wrote, presents a "complex picture." A large, diversified country necessarily requires a complicated governmental, structure that balances national interests and local liberties. The 'resulting complexity is accentuated by history. The United States traces its roots to geographically dispersed communities of inhabitants migrating from different countries and bringing with them different cultural baggage. Subsequent rapid industrialization introduced new problems and exacerbated old ones. Industrial accidents, complex corporate structures, labor unions, and urbanization have induced increasingly detailed regulation. Yet, despite this complexity and diversity, Professor Yntema suggests that there is a fundamental unity of law in the United States. He attributes this unity not only to basic cultural factors, such as a common language, but also to specific institutions: 1) federal legislation and the influence of the federal judiciary, 2) the conception of a common law, as especially inculcated by the leading law schools and the legal literature produced under their influence, 3) the activities of the national bar associations, 4) the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws, and 5) the American Law Institute. 2 With quick, deft strokes, Professor Yntema outlines each of these institutions. He concludes by observing that these institutions have focused on uniformity of domestic James Cleo Thompson Sr. Trustee Professor of Law, S.M.U. School of Law, Dallas, Texas. 1 Hessel E. Yntema, Unification of Law in the United States, in UNIDROIT, L'Unification du droit/Unification of Law 301 (1948). The first paragraph of the present text summarizes Prof. Yntema's essay using words and shorter phrases from the essay without specific attribution. 2 Id. at 305. RDU 1996-4 4 Lawrence M. Friedman, A History of American Law 36 (2d ed. 1985).