This year marks the centennial of the United States Code. To properly understand the Code as it is in 2026, it’s important to understand how it came to be in 1926. In this presentation, Shawn Nevers, director of the BYU Law Library, will share the history of the creation of the United States Code as discovered in archival and congressional sources—a history that has not fully been told. This history helps explain many features of our current code, including positive and non-positive law titles, statutory notes, and the 50 (now 54) title structure. It is also instructive in the benefits and drawbacks of private-public partnerships in legal publishing. Finally, this presentation will address how the current code fulfills the goals of its creators and where it falls short. 

Professor Nevers is the Deputy Director of the Howard W. Hunter Law Library at BYU Law School. His article with Julie Graves Krishnaswami, The Shadow Code: Statutory Notes in the United States Code, won the Law Library Journal Article of the Year Award in 2020.

Please email Brent Burton ([email protected]) if you have any questions.