First[edit]

In the period between 1923 and 1944, the American Law Institute published Restatements of Agency, Conflict of Laws, Contracts, Judgments, Property, Restitution, Security, Torts, and Trusts. This series was later expanded in 2015 and 2019 with publication of the Restatements of Employment Law and Liability Insurance respectively. Projects are currently underway to further expand the series by drafting Restatements on the Law of American Indians, Charitable and Nonprofit Organizations, Children and the Law, Consumer Contracts, Copyright, Corporate Governance, and U.S. Law of International Commercial and Investor-State Arbitration.

Second[edit]

In 1952, the Institute started the Restatement, Second — updates of the original Restatements with new analyses and concepts with and expanded authorities. (A Restatement on Foreign Relations Law of the United States was also undertaken.) The second Restatement of the Law was undertaken to reflect changes and developments in the law, as well as to implement a new format that provided more expansive commentary and more meaningful illustrative material, affording fuller statements of the reasons for the positions taken. For example, the volumes generally included a set of Reporter's Notes that detailed the reasons on which the principles and rules stated were based and the authorities that supported them. And for the convenience of legal researchers, the second series of volumes also provided cross-references to the key numbers of the West Publishing Company's Digest System and to the American Law Reports annotations of the Lawyers Cooperative Publishing Company. In addition, appendix volumes included digest paragraphs of decisions of state appellate courts and federal courts citing the Restatements on each subject.

Third[edit]

The third series of Restatements was started in 1987 with a new Restatement of the Foreign Relations Law of the United States. The Restatement, Third, now includes volumes on Agency, the Law Governing Lawyers, Property (Mortgages, Servitudes, Wills and Other Donative Transfers), Restitution and Unjust Enrichment, Suretyship and Guaranty, Torts (Products Liability, Apportionment of Liability, Economic Harm, and Physical and Emotional Harm), Trusts, and Unfair Competition. New Restatement projects are currently underway as part of the Restatement, Third, series on Conflict of Laws and Torts (Defamation and Privacy, Intentional Torts to Persons, Remedies, and Concluding Provisions).

Fourth[edit]

A volume on the Foreign Relations Law of the United States, released in 2018, was the first in the Restatement, Fourth, series to be completed; however, rather than being a complete update to the previous volume from the third series on the same subject, it is instead limited to selected topics in treaties, jurisdiction, and sovereign immunity. Other new projects are currently underway as part of the Restatement, Fourth, series on Property.