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Administrative Law A Guide to Careers in Administrative Law Written by: Isabel Salovaara 2011 Summer Fellow Bernard Koteen Office of Public Interest Advising Adam Augusiak-Boro Harvard Law School 2010 Summer Fellow Pound 329 Cambridge, MA 02138 Edited by: Tel: (617) 495-3108 Fax: (617) 496-4944 Catherine Pattanayak, Esq. Assistant Director, OPIA © 2011 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College 1 Table of Contents Acknowledgments 2 Chapter 1: Overview of Administrative Law 3 Chapter 2: Career Opportunities in Federal Government 12 Chapter 3: Career Opportunities in State Government 21 Chapter 4: Career Opportunities in Local Government 27 Chapter 5: Non-governmental Career Opportunities 30 Chapter 6: Non-legal Career Opportunities 33 Chapter 7: Preparing for a Career in Administrative Law 35 Chapter 8: Landing a Job 49 Chapter 9: Narratives 55 Chapter 10: Organizations 64 Chapter 11: Resources 68 Acknowledgements Many thanks to all of the students, alumni, faculty, Wasserstein Fellows, and others working in the administrative law field who shared their thoughts, experiences, and expertise with the authors: Angela Brooks, Danny Chou, Abigail Elias, Mark Freeman, Janeen Hayat, Brandon Hofmeister, Evan Hochberg, Blan Holman, Michael Kirkpatrick, Ross Kirschner, Kamaria Kruckenberg, John Lavinsky, Rebecca Leventhal, Craig Levine, Shawne McGibbon, Stephanie Martin, Quentin Palfrey, Sabeel Rahman, Todd Rakoff, Nate Sabel, Marilynn Sager, Glen Shor, Judith Starr, Janice Steinschneider, Julie Straus, Karen Timberlake, Karen Tseng, and Joseph Wender. We could not have written this guide without your valuable input. We are especially grateful to Judith Starr, Karen Tseng, Mark Freeman, Brandon Hofmeister, and Michael Kirkpatrick, who contributed personal narratives. Finally, the authors would like to thank Catherine Pattanayak for providing advice, support, resources, and feedback during the writing of this guide. 2 CHAPTER ADMINSTRATIVE LAW 1 WHAT IS ADMINISTRATIVE LAW? In his work with the Southern Environmental Law Center, Blan Holman advocates preserving and strengthening the regulations that protect our environment. Judith Starr ’85, General Counsel of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, helps ensure that retirees receive their due benefits from private pension funds. Craig Levine‘s role as Senior Counsel and Policy Director at the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice allows him to push for improvements to the juvenile justice system. Karen Tseng ’05 of the Massachusetts Attorney General‘s Office works to protect consumers from deceptive products masquerading as health insurance. What do these public interest lawyers, working in different settings and issue areas, have in common? All of them use the tools of administrative law to effect positive change in policies and regulations. Although most people do not realize it, administrative law affects our lives in numerous ways. Administrative law comes into play at any point where a government agency steps in to alter the legal rights of citizens, corporations, or other entities.1 It influences the formation of rules that govern everything from food labels to public benefits to nuclear waste disposal. Administrative law refers generally to the laws and legal principles governing the creation, administration and “Administrative law…[controls] regulation of government agencies at the federal, state, how government operates. It’s and local levels. It is essentially ―the powers granted to administrative agencies, the substantive rules that such how these various agencies— agencies make, and the legal relationship between such the SEC, NLRB, DOL, etc.—are agencies, other government bodies, and the public at large.‖2 Federal, state, and local agencies are granted their supposed to [function].” power by Congress, state legislatures, or city councils, through statutory law under which regulations are then ~ Professor Todd Rakoff, promulgated. In other words, it is the job of federal, Harvard Law School state, or local legislative bodies to come up with statutory law (which is inherently abstract and general), following which the pertinent agencies promulgate more specific and pragmatic regulations. Government agencies must draft and execute their regulations without stepping outside of Constitutional parameters or statutory law. To further understand this sometimes confusing practice area, it may be helpful to consider an analogy to the process of constructing a bridge. Government agencies draft rules to regulate the areas of activity that fall under their jurisdiction. These rules serve as the bridge that connects the 1 Keith Werhan, Principles of Administrative Law (2008), p. 2. 2 Cornell Law School, “Administrative Law,” http://topics.law.cornell.edu/wex/administrative_law. 3 broad objectives of statutes on paper to the specific realities of the outside world. Administrative law is like the blueprint for the bridge, dictating the angle at which each beam must sit and the order in which each support should be laid. That is, it prescribes how agencies must write their regulations and incorporate public input. Policymakers in government agencies are the architects who envision the final result (what the bridge should look like), while administrative lawyers are the engineers who make sure that the structure adheres to protocol and is sound and stable. One of the statutes that codify the limits of governmental agency action is the Federal Administrative Procedure Act (APA). This act is the major source for federal administrative law, and parallel acts exist at the state and local levels. The APA ensures a certain degree of uniformity and openness in the rulemaking procedures used by federal agencies. For example, the APA demands that agencies go through what is called Notice and Comment Rulemaking. During this process, federal agencies first publish proposed rules and regulations in the Federal Register journal, a serial akin to ―the government‘s official newspaper,‖ according to HLS Professor Todd Rakoff. For a period of time after this initial notice, the agency welcomes public comments. Afterwards, having reviewed all of the comments and made changes, the agency publishes a final rule or regulation in the Code of Federal Regulations. The various steps mandated by the APA and its parallel procedural laws at the state and local level provide a multitude of entry points and opportunities for lawyers to shape, critique, challenge, and defend administrative action. The purpose of this guide is to provide you with a sense of the range of career opportunities in administrative law. Because administrative law applies to so many substantive areas in every branch and level of government—and draws the energies and attention of outside advocacy organizations— the roles of lawyers involved in this field are incredibly diverse. As a result, while there are few who would call themselves strictly administrative lawyers, it is likely that most government lawyers, and many outside government as well, do work related to administrative law at some point in their careers. The first half of this guide describes different types of administrative law practice; the second provides tips and suggestions for making yourself a competitive candidate in the administrative law hiring arena. Throughout the guide, you will find insights from lawyers in various government and non-governmental practice settings. The lawyers featured in this guide all work with diverse facets of administrative law, ranging from the promulgation and enforcement of regulations to writing policy and conducting investigations of regulatory violations. Each of these practitioners will offer a different perspective on the role of administrative law in federal, state, and local government as well as in nonprofits and private public interest firms. We hope that the personal stories and practical advice of these administrative lawyers will provide a helpful introduction to careers in this important and diverse field. ROLES OF AN ADMINISTRATIVE LAWYER Administrative lawyers work in a wide variety of capacities, spanning multiple levels and branches of government and a host of extra-governmental organizations. Those who write agency regulations might be the most likely to call themselves administrative lawyers, but practitioners of administrative law may also fill a multitude of other roles, including analyzing and commenting on proposed rules and prosecuting, defending, or adjudicating cases involving regulations or their violation. 4 Writing Regulations The process of rulemaking, or writing agency regulations, is the activity most typically associated with administrative law. There are perhaps tens of thousands of rules and regulations issued by federal, state, and local agencies. While some of the more routine regulations have been written by non-lawyers filling in an approved template, most new regulations require the special attention and legal expertise of administrative lawyers working in the agency. Lawyers seeking to write regulations must develop excellent legal drafting abilities in order to pursue this career path. Counseling Agency Staff and Officials Administrative lawyers may also provide legal advice to “[In drafting regulations,] agency staff and experts to ensure that proposed rules are lawful, logical, and substantively correct. Administrative you have the substantive lawyers in regulatory counsel positions, for instance, work expert who puts in the alongside scientists and other technical experts to assist them in formulating the
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