American Law Reports (ALR) in the United States

American Law Reports (A.L.R.) are a series of reporters begun in 1919 which contain articles, usually referred to as “annotations” (in fact, they’re detailed law review articles) on over 27,000 different legal topics, written by practicing attorneys . Each article discusses the issue in detail and provides extensive citations to relevant judicial opinions (cases).

The strength of A.L.R. is its systematic presentation of the “state of the law” across the jurisdictions on a particular issue. The A.L.R. format is characterized by some researchers as a secondary source and by others as a case-finding tool. In fact, it has elements of both resources and can be extremely useful in both providing a context for a legal issue and providing citations to primary authorities.

It does not focus on legal analysis or discussion of policy issues. It is not considered a scholarly publication and would not be cited in a piece of legal writing.

What is an ALR annotation?

Each ALR annotation addresses a single legal issue. The author discusses the most important cases and state or federal statutes governing that issue, and also points you to places where the issue is discussed in other research and practice sources, such as American Jurisprudence, Corpus Juris Secundum, L.Ed’s Federal Procedure (which we don’t have), Am Jur Proof of Facts, Am Jur Pleading and Practice Forms, and the L.Ed and ALR Digests. In addition, annotations will usually include a list of law review articles on the topic, and may even give the reader West Digest key numbers and sample Westlaw and Lexis search queries, to help the reader find more cases. Finally, the annotation will include a list of other, related annotations, which may help the reader find one that is even more relevant to your issue.

The state and federal series of A.L.R. are available online through Westlaw (ALR database). Because print indexing is quite good, it may be easier to locate helpful annotations in print than online. Additionally, the online format of A.L.R. can be difficult to browse and this difficulty extends to the version printed from Westlaw.

Some Problems

In the words of Samuel Williston, in his article “The Uniform Partnership Act, with Some Remarks on Other Uniform Commercial Laws”, published by the University of Pennsylvania Law Review and American Law Register (January 1, 1915):

“For the purpose of showing bulk of the existing sources of the law, I have had a rough count made of existing American Law Reports. In order to show more fully whither we are tending,

and the rate at which we are going, I have also had a count made of the volumes which contain the American Case law decided until about the end of 1885. The count has not been minutely careful and is doubtless subject to slight inaccuracies, but it is sufficient for purposes of comparison.

I should add that I have not included duplicate or collateral reports. The Reporter system, the Lawyers Reports Annotated and other collateral series largely increase the number of books
which a law library must possess; but it may be said that they do not increase the bulk of the sources of the law.

I find that there are at the present time something over eight thousand six hundred American law reports. In 1885-86 there were a little over three thousand five hundred. This growth,
whether stated as one of over five thousand volumes or as one of one hundred and fifty per cent. in less than thirty years, is a formidable matter; thirty -ears is not a long period of time in
the life of a state or nation.

When the examination is turned to individual States the situation is even more strikihg. It might be thought that the great increase in the number of reports was due chiefly to the admission of new States to the Union, and to the rapid growth of population and accompanying litigation in States which were undeveloped thirty years ago. To some extent this is true.

In the earlier years Washington Territory and the State of Washington had between them five reports, they now have eighty-two; Oregon, which had thirteen volumes, now has thirtyseven;
Nebraska, which had eighteen volumes, now has one hundred.

But the growth in the Middle States and in the larger Eastern States is quite as noticeable. In Illinois the increase is from one hundred and twenty-six volumes to four hundred and
fifty two; in Missouri, from one hundred and two volumes to four hundred and thirty-two; in New York, with its multitude of irregular reports, as well as its large regular series, the number
has risen from five hundred and eighty-six to twelve hundred and nine; in Pennsylvania, including the periodical publications, which include decisions of its county courts and other local tribunals, the number has increased from one hundred and fortyeight volumes to seven hundred and thirty-six.

What does this mean?. In the first place it means that the sources of the American law are extremely bulky; that the maintenance of a library from which that law can adequately be surveyed has become a matter of vast expense. It is not a great many years since individual lawyers might hope to own a library which contained substantially the whole case law of England and the United States. That time has passed and the time is also passing when most cities and counties can hope to have libraries approximately adequate to ascertain the law even of their own States; for the decisions of other States may on many points be necessary to determine the law of a particular State.

Another consequence of the increasing bulk of our Reports is that each State is developing a jurisprudence of its own which tends to become more and more independent of the law of other States. When the Supreme Court of a State has filled two or three hundred volumes of reports with its decisions, authority of some sort on most questions of law which are likely to arise may be found in them. It becomes less often necessary to search reports of other States.

It may be thought that this tendency serves to counteract the difficulties arising from the bulk of our sources. Seven hundred volumes of Reports are a good many, but if the Pennsylvania
lawyer may discard decisions of lower courts and can find most of his problems answered in the Reports of the higher courts of his own State, why need he be troubled because the courts of other States are producing a multitude of decisions from month to month?. To some extent undoubtedly the individual problem is made easier in this way, but the necessity of reference to Reports of other States is not wholly avoided. The possibility vhich frequently exists that decisions outside of the State may be of vital consequence makes the examination of such decisions necessary much oftener than where the results of the examination actually prove important.”

Predecessor Publications

The American Law Reports series was preceded by publications from the Bancroft-Whitney Company and the Lawyers’ Co-operative Publishing Company, both of which were acquired by the Thomson Corporation. The predecessor sets were:
•American decisions, containing all the cases of general value and authority decided in the courts of the several states, from the earliest issue of the state reports [1760] to the year 1869 (Bancroft, 1878-1888);
•American Reports (Bancroft-Whitney, 1869-1887);
•American State Reports (Bancroft-Whitney, 1888-1911),
•American and English Annotated Cases (Bancroft-Whitney, 1906-1918);
•American Annotated Cases (Bancroft-Whitney, 1912-1962; also published as v. 22-40 of American and English Annotated Cases)
•Lawyers’ Reports Annotated (Lawyers Co-op, 1888-1906); and
•Lawyers’ Reports Annotated: New Series (Lawyers Co-operative, 1906-1918).