Why I Do Law Reform

In this Article, Professor Waggoner, newly retired, provides a retrospective on his career in law reform. He was inspired to write the Article by a number of articles by law professors explaining why they write. He contrasts law-reform work with law-review writing, pointing out that the work product of a law-reform reporter is directed to duly constituted law-making authorities. He notes that before getting into the law-reform business, he had authored or co-authored law review articles that advocated reform, but he also notes that those articles did not move the law a whit. The articles did, however, lead to his selection as reporter, first for the Uniform Law Commission and then for the American Law Institute. Only by becoming a reporter was he able to influence the law. The Article lists a number of reforms in which he played a part, in a career in law reform that spanned nearly three decades. The Article closes by addressing the question in the title. He devoted much of his career to law reform work, he writes, in the hope that the work improved the law. And, he admits, he also did it because he liked doing it