Legislation and Regulation

Where most required courses emphasize the work of the state and federal judiciaries, this course focuses on the federal government's other law-generating institutions -- Congress, the President, and, most importantly, the administrative agencies that implement congressional and presidential policy. These institutions, their processes of decision-making, and their substantive decisions are the primary sources of law in the contemporary United States, a "republic of statutes" governed by an expansive "administrative state." With respect to Congress, the course will focus on contemporary disputes about statutory interpretation. With respect to agencies, the course will focus on the internal structure of agencies, the relationship between agencies and the political branches (Congress and the President), the processes of administrative rulemaking and administrative adjudication, and, to a lesser degree, judicial supervision of these basic forms of administrative action.

Our casebook will be Strauss, Rakoff, Metzger, Barron O'Connell,, Administrative Law - Cases and Comments (12th Ed. 2018).

If you have already taken a course on Legislation or Administrative Law, you must talk with Professor Kessler before you to take this course.