Thursday, September 13, 2007  Langbein on Why Did Trust Law
Become Statute Law in the United States?  John H. Langbein,
Yale, has posted a new article, Why Did Trust Law Become Statute
Law in the United States? It is forthcoming in the Alabama Law
Review. Here's the abstract: The Uniform Trust Code, the first
national-level codification of the American law of trusts, was
promulgated in 2000. The Code was the product of a five-year
Uniform Law Commission drafting process that entailed extensive
consultation with the trust and estates bar and the trust
banking industry. The Code is being widely enacted. Eighteen
states and the District of Columbia have thus far adopted it,
and many others are likely to follow. Alabama's enactment comes
into effect in 2007. For the future, trust law in Alabama and
the other Code states will be prevailingly statute law, although
the principles developed in prior case law will continue to
inform the interpretation and application of the Code. In one
sense, the Code marks a great d