Administrative Law: Agency Action in Legal Context

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The third edition of this innovative administrative law casebook retains and enhances its unique features:

• Focus on five representative agencies to provide students with a more holistic understanding of agencies and provide context.
• Use of a consistent unit design that maximizes student learning and facilitates the use of the book with a wide variety of teaching styles, including traditional methods and the “flipped” classroom.
• Incorporation of cutting-edge cases and problems that focus on the practical application of administrative law doctrines.

By focusing on five important and representative agencies (the EPA, NLRB, SSA, IRS, and FCC), the book addresses two key problems for teaching and learning administrative law: (1) students’ lack of familiarity with agencies and what they do; and (2) the difficulty of understanding new and different agencies and their organic statutes for each new administrative law case. Extended treatment of these five agencies, including one chapter for each agency that focuses on its use of a particular kind of agency action (rulemaking, policymaking adjudication, mass adjudication, informal action, and enforcement) provides students with a more complete picture of what agencies do and how they do it. Because the principal cases and problems involve the same five agencies throughout the book, the need to learn about new agencies and understand new organic statutes is greatly reduced, enabling students and teachers to focus on the administrative law issues in the cases.

The book uses a consistent “unit” format throughout. Each unit covers a particular topic and includes (1) a clear and comprehensive discussion of the basic doctrine governing the topic; (2) a principal case or cases to illustrate the application of the doctrine and highlight key issues; (3) a discussion of related matters to explore additional issues and connections between topics; and (4) a detailed administrative law problem requiring the application of the doctrine in context. This unique structure and design facilitates the use of the book with a variety of teaching methods, including the Socratic method, lecture and discussion, and the problem method. Because it combines clear exposition, illustrative principal cases, and comprehensive problems, the book is also an ideal tool for teachers who want to flip their classrooms. This unit structure also enhances the flexibility of the book, allowing teachers easily to select topics for coverage and determine the depth of coverage they wish to provide.

The third edition has been thoroughly updated to provide cutting edge treatment of emerging administrative law issues and developments, including the reinvigoration of separation of powers, the erosion of Chevron deference, and constraints on agency guidance documents. The third edition also reflects changes designed to enhance the book’s effectiveness as a teaching and learning tool, such as increased use of primary administrative law materials, improvements to problems, and new principal cases.

Imprint: Foundation Press
Series: University Casebook Series
Publication Date: 02/24/2020