The American Law Institute is the leading independent organization in the United States which produces scholarly work to clarify, modernize, and otherwise improve the law. The Institute consists of lawyers, judges, and law professors; it drafts, discusses, and publishes Restatements & Principles of the Law, model statutes, and more. These publications are enormously influential in courts and legislatures, as well as in legal scholarship and education.

HeinOnline’s American Law Institute Library contains full runs of the Institute’s Annual Reports, Proceedings, Annual Meeting Speeches, and the Institute’s newsletter, The ALI Reporter. It also includes both current and archival Restatements of the Law, Uniform Commercial Code, Model Penal Code, ALI-ABA Periodicals, and the Statement of Essential Human Rights (a pioneering ALI project of the mid-1940s).

The American Law Institute Library includes:

• Restatements & Principles of the Law
• Uniform Commercial Code
• ALI Annual Reports
• Proceedings of ALI Annual Meetings
• ALI Reporter
• Model Penal Codes
• ALI-CLE Publications
• Scholarly Articles
• And more!

Restatements in HeinOnline

Restatements often include commentary and examples and are essentially codifications of common law judge-made doctrines that develop gradually over time because of the principle of stare decisis. The Restatements of the Law are some of the most respected and well-used sources of secondary authority, covering nearly every area of common law.

To locate Restatements in HeinOnline, navigate to the American Law Institute Library and select the Restatements & Principles of the Law subcollection. Categories in this subcollection are listed in alphabetical order.

Select a category for the list of available titles in the category. Click the “more information” link next to any title for a detailed description of the title.

Coverage includes:

Searching Restatements

To search for specific Restatement material, select “Advanced Search” under the main search bar.

For example, using the Advanced Search tool, search for section titles containing the word torts and documents containing the word “liability” in the document text. Select “Restatements & Principles of the Law” under document type.

Sort your results by relevance, volume date, and more. Use the facets on the left side of the screen to refine your results. Terms that match your search criteria will be highlighted in yellow:

Recent Updates to Restatements

Current material and pocket parts are included for Restatements & Principles of the Law. Previously, these titles had a six-month embargo.

To locate updated material, look for the orange “u” icon to the left of the categories:

Material recently added will have a green “n” icon next to the title.

Restatement citations can be found throughout HeinOnline. If a Restatement citation exists within a document, it will be a highlighted inline hyperlink. Clicking on the link will take the user to the title and section cited.

Restatement Linking in Fastcase

Restatement citations are also linked in Fastcase documents:

Search for the Most Cited Restatements

Using Hein’s ScholarCheck tool, users can search for the most cited Restatements.

For example, do a full text search for (*) and sort your results by “Number of Times Cited by Articles”:

While searching in the Law Journal Library, users can see when articles are cited within the American Law Institute Library.

For example, search torts in the Law Journal Library and then sort by “Number of Times Cited by Articles”:

To view the items that cite the article, click the “Cited by 21 (ALI)”:

If you have any questions about this post or Restatements of the Law in HeinOnline, contact the dedicated support team at (800) 277-6995, email us, or chat with us!