Non-profit

American Law Institute (ALI)

Website:

www.ali.org

Location:

Philadelphia, PA

Tax ID:

23-1352013

Tax-Exempt Status:

501(c)(3)

Budget (2022):

Revenue: $17,652,767
Expenses: $12,059,054
Assets: $89,963,474

Type:

Think Tank

Formation:

1923

President:

David Levi

Budget (2023):

Revenue: $14,896,914
Expenses: $13,479,881
Total Assets: $97,240,904 19

References

  1. American Law Institute. Return of Organization Exempt From Income Tax. (Form 990 – Part I). 2023.

Contact InfluenceWatch with suggested edits or tips for additional profiles.

The American Law Institute (ALI) is an academic membership-based organization that reviews United States common law and publishes documents that clarify and modernize the law for the courts. It will also write model code that can be used by state and federal legislatures to enact new or modified laws. Its members are judges, lawyers, and law professors. 1

Background

The American Law Institute is an independent organization that reviews United States common law and publishes restatements to clarify and modernize the law. Its publications are used by state legislatures, the courts, and in the legal education system. 1

The ALI was founded in 1923 by a group of judges, lawyers, and law professors who were called “The Committee on the Establishment of a Permanent Organization for the Improvement of the Law.” The group believed that the law was “unnecessarily uncertain and complex” and formed the ALI “to promote the clarification and simplification of the law and its better adaptation to social needs.” 2

As of June 2024, ALI had 4,730 members including judges, lawyers, and legal academics. 3

The ALI is governed by its council which consists of elected members. The council meets twice per year to decide on what projects and activities will be done and reviews and approves any results. 4

Work Areas and Projects

The American Law Institute publishes Restatements of the Law, Model Codes, and Principles. Restatements are clarifications of current common law and are used primarily by courts. Principles are typically best practices and are addressed to legislatures and administrative agencies. Model Codes contain proposed language and are meant primarily for legislatures to assist in legislative enactment. 5 6

The ALI director recommends projects and team members for each project that are then approved by the council. Each project goes through a series of drafts and reviews that eventually lead to review and approval by the council and then the members at the annual meeting. Once approved the official text is produced and published. 7 8

The ALI partnered with the Uniform Law Commission to develop the Uniform Commercial Code, a set of model laws governing commercial activity across the United States which has been universally adopted. 2

The Model Penal Code was published by the ALI in 1962 as a draft criminal code that was adopted partly or completely by a majority of the states. 2

In January 2024, the ALI released a uniform set of ethical standards for election-administration professionals. In April 2024, the ALI released Principles for Insurrection Act Reform to document standards for presidential deployment of U.S. armed forces in response to domestic threats. One of its newest projects is the Principles of the Law, Civil Liability for Artificial Intelligence. At the 2024 annual meeting, the Restatement of the Law, Children and the Law, was approved. The 2023 to 2024 ALI annual report notes that “while traditionally children were assumed to be dependent, vulnerable and incompetent, today they are rights bearing legal persons for some purposes—but not others.” 3

Controversy

A National Review article in 2018 raised concerns about the American Law Institute’s Restatements, citing the late former Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who indicated that the authors “have abandoned the mission of describing the law, and have chosen instead to set forth their aspirations for what the law ought to be.” 9

Members

Notable members of the American Law Institute include U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson who was nominated by President Joe Biden; 10 Raheemah Abdulaleem, general counsel and Special Assistant to the President in the Biden administration; 11 and Janet Napolitano, president of the University of California, Berkeley, who was a two-term Democratic Governor of Arizona and served as the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in the Obama administration. 12 13

Funding

The American Law Institute obtains its funding from its educational programs, membership dues, publication sales, donations, and grants. 4

In addition to individual donors, organizations that have donated to the ALI include the Carnegie Corporation of New York; 3 the Munger, Tolles, and Olson Foundation; and donor-advised funds Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust, the American Endowment Foundation, the Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program, and the Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund. 14

Leadership

David F. Levi has been president of the American Law Institute since 2017. He is a professor at the Duke University School of Law. He earned a J.D. from Stanford Law School and started his career as a law clerk. He was a prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of California, was appointed by former President Ronald Reagan as the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of California in 1986, and was appointed a United States District Judge by former President George H.W. Bush in 1990. He has been on several boards and committees including Equal Justice Works, a left-of-center organization that promotes and enables public interest law careers by connecting law students, lawyers, legal service organizations, and activists. 15 16 17

Judge Diane P. Wood became a director of ALI in 2023. She was elected as a member in 1990 and as a council member in 2003. Wood earned her J.D. from the University of Texas and clerked for Judge Irving L. Goldberg of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and for Associate Justice Harry A. Blackmun of the U.S. Supreme Court. She practiced law until 1980 and then became a professor at Georgetown University Law School and at Cornell University Law School. During the Clinton administration, she was the Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the United States Department of Justice. Wood was appointed to the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in 1995, serving as Chief Judge from 2013 to 2020. She is a senior lecturer in law at the University of Chicago Law School. 18

References

  1. “About ALI.” American Law Institute. Accessed January 5, 2025. https://www.ali.org/about-ali/
  2. “The Story of ALI.” The American Law Institute. Archived from the original December 3, 2024. Accessed January 22, 2025. https://web.archive.org/web/20241203135514/https://www.ali.org/about-ali/story-line/
  3. The American Law Institute 2023-2024 Annual Report. Accessed January 5, 2025. https://www.ali.org/media/filer_public/ba/ca/baca1412-8053-4511-ade5-594e2e1357f3/2024_annual_report.pdf
  4. “Frequently Asked Questions.” American Law Institute. Accessed January 5, 2025. https://www.ali.org/about-ali/faq/
  5. “American Law Institute. US Legal – Associations. Accessed January 5, 2025. https://associations.uslegal.com/american-law-institute/
  6. “How ALI Works.” The ALI Adviser. Accessed January 5, 2025. https://www.thealiadviser.org/how-ali-works/
  7. “Project Life Cycle.” American Law Institute. Accessed January 5, 2025. https://www.ali.org/projects/project-life-cycle/
  8. American Law Institute. Return of Organization Exempt From Income Tax. (Form 990 – Part III). 2023.
  9. John Fund. “A Powerful Legal Group Changes the Law While Nobody’s Looking.” The National Review. May 13, 2018. Accessed January 5, 2025. https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/05/american-law-institute-restatements-politically-correct-agenda/
  10. “The Senate Confirms Ketanji Brown Jackson.” The White House. Accessed January 5, 2025. https://www.whitehouse.gov/kbj/
  11. LinkedIn – Raheemah Abdulaleem. Accessed January 5, 2025. https://www.linkedin.com/in/raheemah-abdulaleem/
  12. “President Biden Announces Appointments to the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board and the National Science Board.” The White House. May 4, 2022. Accessed January 5, 2025. https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/05/04/president-biden-announces-appointments-to-the-presidents-intelligence-advisory-board-and-the-national-science-board/
  13. “Janet A. Napolitano.” American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Accessed January 5, 2025. https://www.amacad.org/person/janet-napolitano
  14. ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer search. Accessed January 5, 2025. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/full_text_search?sort=best&form%5B%5D=IRS990ScheduleI&q=23-1352013&submit=Apply
  15. “About Us.” Equal Justice Works. Accessed January 5, 2025. https://www.equaljusticeworks.org/about/
  16. “Levi elected American Law Institute president.” Duke Law. January 21, 2016. Accessed January 5, 2025. https://law.duke.edu/news/levi-elected-american-law-institute-president/
  17. “David F. Levi.” American Law Institute. Accessed January 5, 2025. Link from https://www.ali.org/about-ali/story-line/
  18.  “Diane P. Wood.” The University of Chicago – The Law School. Accessed January 5, 2025. https://www.law.uchicago.edu/faculty/wood-d
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Nonprofit Information

  • Accounting Period: June - May
  • Tax Exemption Received: October 1, 1942

  • Available Filings

    Period Form Type Total revenue Total functional expenses Total assets (EOY) Total liabilities (EOY) Unrelated business income? Total contributions Program service revenue Investment income Comp. of current officers, directors, etc. Form 990
    2022 Jun Form 990 $17,652,767 $12,059,054 $89,963,474 $4,036,463 N $7,361,319 $6,808,194 $2,074,795 $1,055,039
    2021 Jun Form 990 $15,539,704 $10,893,745 $99,411,184 $3,380,310 N $5,823,494 $7,023,421 $2,066,932 $1,081,210 PDF
    2020 Jun Form 990 $12,993,045 $12,167,360 $77,378,733 $4,838,930 N $2,266,353 $8,068,888 $1,519,604 $1,032,776 PDF
    2019 Jun Form 990 $12,979,552 $12,937,070 $75,195,949 $3,824,664 N $1,529,212 $8,622,784 $1,974,004 $989,316 PDF
    2018 Jun Form 990 $13,401,619 $12,203,143 $73,476,192 $3,714,813 Y $1,800,184 $9,052,449 $1,756,843 $996,491 PDF
    2017 Jun Form 990 $18,920,654 $12,767,514 $69,807,359 $4,211,963 N $7,043,023 $9,275,769 $1,858,039 $907,629
    2016 Jun Form 990 $13,266,069 $13,633,339 $59,470,457 $4,109,341 Y $977,810 $9,826,631 $1,629,132 $1,117,161 PDF
    2015 Jun Form 990 $13,834,523 $14,566,364 $62,453,660 $4,943,860 Y $1,348,872 $9,918,801 $1,600,459 $844,768 PDF
    2014 Jun Form 990 $21,148,936 $14,166,723 $63,745,137 $4,946,065 N $927,312 $11,267,147 $1,104,825 $848,839 PDF
    2013 Jun Form 990 $15,752,178 $13,036,510 $58,050,761 $4,606,246 N $845,412 $12,325,933 $1,207,463 $804,024 PDF
    2012 Jun Form 990 $17,691,177 $16,253,778 $54,012,098 $5,825,706 N $891,384 $12,876,874 $819,572 $998,717 PDF
    2011 Jun Form 990 $16,959,409 $15,403,850 $53,358,552 $4,990,734 N $769,137 $7,966,245 $825,601 $1,041,607 PDF

    Additional Filings (PDFs)

    American Law Institute (ALI)

    4025 CHESTNUT ST
    Philadelphia, PA 19104-3081