The Archives and Special Collections office is located on the fourth floor of Tanenbaum Hall, room T-414.
Heather Isbell Schumacher
Head of Archives and Special Collections
Liz Wittrig
Archivist
Abigail Boyer
Archives Assistant
Email: biddlearchives@law.upenn.edu
Click here to access the ALI Meeting Minutes Collection on the Penn Carey Law Digital Collections site. Over 300 records can be found in this collection, which documents the operating activities of the American Law Institute [ALI] and the organization's professional activities.
The ALI oral history interviews were recorded by major figures in the history of the American Law Institute. The interviews were recorded between 1989 and 1993. For more information about this collection, please consult the finding aid or contact the Archives.
Interviews:
Professor Herbert Wechsler served as Director of The American Law Institute from 1963 to 1984. Previously, he was Chief Reporter for the Model Penal Code from 1952 until 1962.
Professor Homer Kripke, a leading commercial law scholar and practitioner, was a faculty member of ALI-ABA's Advanced Course of Study on The Emerging New Uniform Commercial Code presented in New York City September 7-9, 1989. Founded in 1923, the Institute has been involved with the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws in the drafting of the Uniform Commercial Code and its revisions since the 1940s. Homer Kripke was an important figure in the Uniform Commercial Code project almost from its inception. He was also involved in the 1970s as a consultant in the Institute's Federal Securities Code project.
Professor James A. Casner served the American Law Institute in a variety of roles. He was a Special Reporter and Adviser for portions of the original Restatement of Property and the Reporter for the Restatement, Second, of Property (Landlord and Tenant and Donative Transfers) and for the Institute's projects on Federal Estate and Gift Taxation and Subchapter J of the Internal Revenue Code.
At the end of 1992, Paul Wolkin completed more than 45 consecutive years in the administration of The American Law Institute. He first joined the Institute in the summer of 1947 as assistant to the ALI’s new Director, Judge Herbert Goodrich, and he held the title of ALI Assistant Director from 1955 until 1977, when he was named Executive Vice President. In 1963 he had also become Executive Director of the ALI-ABA Committee on Continuing Professional Education, and so for nearly 30 years he was responsible for the day-today operations of the two organizations in their shared Philadelphia headquarters. At the beginning of 1993 he became Executive Vice President Emeritus and he joined the Institute’s Council.
The American Law Institute web archive is an archive of websites related to the history and ongoing work of the American Law Institute. This collection is built using the tool Archive-It.