U.S. Administrative Law Research Guide

Each federal agency has specific regulatory functions within a narrowly defined area of the law, which are outlined by the particular piece of legislation that created the agency.  In order to better understand the laws produced by the agency, the researcher needs to first understand the context of the laws.  Thus, the researcher should begin by conducting a background analysis of the agency's purpose and activities.  Several resources are available for this part of the administrative law research process:

 United States Government Manual (Ref JK 421.A3) 
Available electronically at http://www.gpoaccess.gov/gmanual/  This annual directory of the federal government lists each department of the Executive Branch, as well as over 50 administrative agencies and commissions.  Each entry includes citations to the enabling legislation (the statute that created the administrative body); a description of the agency's structure and responsibilities; an organizational chart, with contact information for key agency personnel; and important publications produced by the agency.  The manual contains a subject index to help locate the name of the relevant agency for a particular area of law.

 The Federal Regulatory Directory (Ready Ref KF 5406.A15 F4 2003) 
This guide, published every two years by Congressional Quarterly, offers much of the same content as the Manual, but it gives more detail, especially to the 12 largest regulatory agencies.  It also covers over 100 other agencies and offices.  This source is updated more frequently than the Manual.

LSU Libraries Federal Agencies Directory
Available electronically at http://www.lib.lsu.edu/gov/fedgov.html This website contains a comprehensive collection of links to the home pages of our country's Executive Branch departments and regulatory agencies.  It gives both hierarchical and alphabetical listings of these organizations, as well as separate listings for independent agencies, and boards, commissions, and committees.  A search feature is also available.

Administrative agencies issue regulations, sometimes called rules, which govern activities within their subject area.  These are detailed orders that have the same format as legislative acts or statutes.  Regulations first appear in the Federal Register, a daily publication of the National Archives and Records Administration, where they are arranged chronologically.  Later, the formal regulations are arranged by topic in the annual Code of Federal Regulations (CFR).

 Federal Register (AE 2.106, Government Documents) 
Available electronically at http://www.gpoaccess.gov/fr/index.html This source includes both proposed and finalized rules and regulations, as well as notices of hearings on these laws.  Each issue of the register starts with a table of contents and a list of CFR citations for new or proposed regulations for that day.  The table of contents has an alphabetical listing of agencies for easy access to the regulatory activities of a particular administrative body.  A cumulative index to the register is published monthly. 

 The electronic version allows the researcher to search for regulations by keyword, Federal Register page number, and CFR citation.  Coverage is from 1994 to the present.

 Code of Federal Regulations (Ref KF70. A3) 
Available electronically at http://www.gpoaccess.gov/cfr/index.html  The CFR is divided into titles, which correspond to different subject areas.  Each title is further divided into chapters, which contain the regulations issued by a specific agency.  Then, the chapters are divided into parts, which cover particular functions of the agency.  Finally, the parts are divided into sections, which address narrow aspects of these functions.  The table of contents for each title lists its chapters, the parts for those chapters, and the sections for the parts in the chapters.  A citation to the CFR gives the title, part and section.  These citations may come from sources such as the USCA or Statutes at Large.

 The print version of the CFR includes an Index and Finding Aids volume, which is updated annually and provides access by subject area and agency name; however, this tool is not very thorough, and its indexing is cumbersome.  The electronic version, in contrast, is easier to use; it provides the ability to search by keyword or CFR citation.  Coverage is from 1996 to the present.

After the researcher finds relevant regulations, he or she must verify that they are still valid.  Regulations can change frequently; they may be overturned by court rulings, or they may be published in a different location within the CFR.  To make sure that the particular CFR section of interest remains current, and to locate any new or pending regulations or judicial decisions that affect it, the researcher needs to check the following sources:

LSA: List of CFR Sections Affected  Available electronically at http://www.gpoaccess.gov/lsa/

This monthly pamphlet accompanies the CFR and lists new or proposed rules affecting the various CFR sections.  It lists these changes by title, then by chapter and section, and it gives separate lists for final actions and proposed rules.  Each list item contains the CFR section affected, the page number in the Federal Register where changes to the section can be found, and a note describing the nature of the changes ("amended," "removed," or "revised").  

 Each LSA volume cumulates changes to the CFR that have occurred since the date of its last revision (this date is located on the cover of each CFR title, since different titles are updated at different times during the year).  So, the researcher needs to first check the latest monthly edition of the LSA.  Then, the researcher needs to return to the Federal Register to consult another list:

 "List of CFR Parts Affected"  Federal Register  This list appears at the back of each daily Federal Register issue and cumulates all changes to the CFR for the current month.  So, the researcher should first check the list in the latest available edition of the Federal Register to see changes issued within that month.  Then, depending on the date of the latest LSA edition, the researcher may also need to check the list in the last Federal Register for the previous month.

 The process just described mainly applies to users of the print versions of the CFR and the Federal Register, but users of the electronic versions of these sources can update regulations in a similar fashion.  The CFR page on GPO Access contains a link to the LSA, which contains links to the following: "List of CFR Parts Affected Today," "Current List of CFR Parts Affected," and "Last Month's List of CFR Parts Affected."  The researcher can find the same content contained in the print version, namely citations to Federal Register page numbers. 

Once the researcher locates changes to relevant CFR sections and parts, and reads the text of these changes in the appropriate Federal Register volume, it is necessary to perform one final step in the updating process.  It is possible that certain judicial decisions have applied, interpreted, or even challenged, the researcher's regulations of interest.  The CFR does not include annotations to such decisions, so the researcher needs to consult a source known as a citator.  Citators verify the validity of judicial decisions or administrative regulations that have been previously issued; they provide references to court cases that have cited these laws, and they provide notes, in the form of letter symbols that tell whether or not these citing cases have overturned the laws.   

One of the best known series of citators is Shepard's Citations.  The various titles in this series contain cases that cite legislative statutes, judicial decisions, administrative regulations, and other types of laws.  When updating administrative laws, the researcher should use:

 Shepard's Code of Federal Regulations Citations (Ref KF70. A3 1) 
This source includes court decisions and selected law review articles that have cited or discussed CFR sections in either a positive or negative context.  Coverage is from about 1949 to the present for federal courts, and from 1977 to the present for state courts and law reviews.   The citing cases are listed by the CFR titles and sections they address, and each citing case entry has an abbreviation that indicates how the case treated the regulation.

In addition to creating rules and regulations, federal administrative bodies conduct hearings and issue decisions that affect specific groups, those who perform activities that fall within their areas of expertise.  The decisions interpret the very rules and regulations that dictate the operations of the bodies, applying them to various situations and problems that arise in their subject areas of jurisdiction.

 Many federal agencies publish formal opinions that explain their rulings on certain issues; these are similar in format to court reports.  The opinions appear in a variety of sources, namely loose-leaf services and topical reporters.  The layout of these sources varies with the agency.  The following are examples of administrative decisions sources that are available in our library: 

Digest and Decisions of the Employees' Compensation Appeals Board  (L28.9, Government Documents).  1996-2002

Federal Securities Law Reporter  (Ref KF 1436.5.C63).  1977-2005

Decisions & Orders of the National Labor Relations Board  (Ref KF 3372.A55).  1939-2002

Fair Employment Practice Cases  (Ref KF 3464.A514).  1969-1991

Occupational Safety & Health Decisions (Ref KF 3568.3.A25 C6).  1975-2004

Environment Reporter Cases (Ref KF 3775.A6 E49).  1970-2004

Decisions of the United States Merit System Protection Board (Ref KF 5338.A5).  1980-1993

IRS Letter Ruling (Ref KF 6282.A2 C65).  1977-current

The web sites for the various federal agencies, boards, commissions, and other administrative bodies are another vital source of decisions rendered by these organizations. 

Administrative Decisions and Other Actions.  Government Information Resources, University of Virginia Library. 
Available electronically at http://www.lib.virginia.edu/govdocs/fed_decisions_agency.html.  This is a directory of federal agency decisions available on the Internet.  It lists agencies in alphabetical order, and by subject, and provides links to agency web pages and other sources that contain administrative decisions that fall outside the scope of the CFR and the Federal Register. 

U.S. Federal Administrative Decisions  Rutgers University Libraries 
Available electronically at http://law-library.rutgers.edu/ilg/usfedlaw.html#FEDADMDC This page provides an alphabetical listing of administrative agencies by executive department, with links to their decisions.  It has much of the same content as the previous source, only it focuses on the major regulatory agencies.

For more information on conducting research in administrative law, see the following sources for this research guide:

Legal Research in a Nutshell (Ready Ref KF240.C54 2000).  See Chapter Seven, "Administrative Law." 

Finding the Law (Ref KF 240.C5382 1984).  See Chapter Eight, "Administrative and Executive Publications."