Annual Bulletin (Comparative Law Bureau)

The Annual Bulletin of the Comparative Law Bureau of the American Bar Association (ABA) was a U.S. specialty law journal (1908–1914, 1933). The first comparative law journal in the United States, it surveyed foreign legislation and legal literature. Circulated to all ABA members, it was absorbed in 1915 by the newly formed American Bar Association Journal.

History

Bureau

In 1905, a committee of the Pennsylvania State Bar Association considered the creation of a comparative law society and recommended to bring such large project to the American Bar Association. The ABA created such entity at its 1907 annual meeting, as a new section named the Comparative Law Bureau: the Bureau members would meet annually at the ABA's summer meeting and publish an annual bulletin.

The Bureau's officers included: Simeon E. Baldwin (as director, 1907–1919; ABA co-founder and president, later Governor of Connecticut) and William Smithers (as secretary, also the chairman of the Bulletin's editorial staff). The Bureau's managers included: James Barr Ames (dean at Harvard), George Kirchwey (dean at Columbia), William Draper Lewis (dean at Pennsylvania, later the founding director of the American Law Institute), and John Henry Wigmore (dean at Northwestern).