The Law Book of the Future

Abstract

In an article published in November, 1922, in the American Bar Association Journal on the "Power and Responsibility of the American Bar and its Relations to Democratic Institutions," the author pointed out the achievements of the profession in developing the law to meet the political and industrial needs of the American people. There is still other important work for the profession to do. Blackstone's and Kent's Commentaries have been outgrown and there is an imperative demand for a comprehensive and practical American treatise on all law for the use of law students and lawyers, legislators and the educated classes generally. At present, text books cover different branches of jurisprudence, but the whole law has not been systematized and compressed into one work, available and intelligible as a part of a liberal education. Blackstone's originality, classifications, historical references, and worship of the then existing British institutions have been impugned and even his literary style attacked, but his work is still a classic and has never been displaced. It shows what is possible in summarizing the law simply, clearly, and in a manner that makes it a pleasure to laymen and lawyers.