All of your classes (except property, arguably) are heavily influenced by codes and/or restatements. In contracts you will encounter the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC), and the Restatement 2d of Contracts. The law of torts is influenced by the Restatement of Torts, 2d. The criminal law in almost all states is influenced in some way by the Model Penal Code. And in your Civil Procedure course you will study The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP) and state civil procedure codes that govern the workings of federal and state courts respectively.

First, let's distinguish codes from restatements. Codes are model statutes that groups of judges, professors, and lawyers write with the hope of recording, clarifying, and updating the law. After the model codes are written - a process that takes years - they are circulated to the states. State legislatures then debate and edit the codes, much to the dissatisfaction of the drafters. At the end of this long process, the legislatures of the states often pass these model codes into law. The codes you will encounter most often are the Model Penal Code (the Model Code) and the UCC.

The Model Penal Code was drafted by the American Law Institute (judges, professors, lawyers) and was designed to achieve many ambitious goals. One such goal was to create greater uniformity of criminal statutes between states. Another goal was clarity. The model code defines crimes and their elements and it does so with a much greater precision than previous state law codes. The Model Code has been very successful and has been adopted by a majority of the states, though some states have heavily modified it, arguably circumventing the ALI's goal of uniformity.

The UCC is a code drafted by the American Law Institute (ALI) and The National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws. Similar to the Model Penal Code, some of the goals of the drafters of the UCC were greater uniformity and precision of state commercial statues. The UCC has been very successful and most states have adopted it. The desired result of adopting the statue was greater efficiency and predictability in business transactions. Primarily, you will study Article II; it is but one of 11 Articles found in the code. Article II is concerned only with the sale of goods, a very specific term under the Code. You will only come across the Code a few times your first year.

The rest of the UCC deals with more complex commercial transactions, e.g. commercial paper. In the illustration, White Hand is showing you that this very large code book also contains the entire UCC of which you study only Art. II. As an aside, Red Hand is showing you that code books are promulgated by private legal publishers, the largest being the West.

One of the main purposes of the FRCP was to make it easy and simple to bring a law suit in federal court. Up until the FRCP, federal civil procedure was convoluted and open to a great deal of abuse based upon technicalities. While the code has lowered the bar on the technical aspect of federal procedure, it is doubtful that it has made prosecuting a law suit plain, simple, or easy. By the end of your first year (if you Civil Procedure course lasts all year), you will know the FRCP inside and out.

Unlike codes, Restatements are not laws. But like codes, groups of judges, professors, and lawyers write the restatements. The purpose of a restatement is to "restate" the law as it exists in the real world. Sometimes the drafters of restatements get ambitious and try to refine and improve the law instead of merely restating it. The two restatements that you will most often encounter are the Restatement 2d of Contracts and the Restatement 2d of torts. The "2d" means second: The previous version has been revised and improved. Property law has a restatement, but it has never had much influence because of the large amount of divergence between state law and disagreement as to what property law is or should be. You will encounter the restatements in reading your cases. Remember they are not law, but courts often refer to them as influential. If the law in a jurisdiction is unclear and there are no precedents on point, a court might follow the restatements version of a rule.