Draft Chapters 1-3 of Administrative Law: A Context and Practice Casebook
ADMINISTRATIVE LAW: A CONTEXT AND PRACTICE CASEBOOK, Carolina Academic Press, 2012
42 Pages Posted: 14 Aug 2011
Date Written: August 12, 2011
Abstract
These are the first three chapters of a forthcoming casebook on administrative law. The book aims to offer administrative law teachers something completely different from other casebooks.
You can appreciate three of the main differences if you understand that this book is really meant to be a textbook, not a casebook:
• First. The book does not excerpt any judicial opinion unless (1) having students read the excerpt is the most effective way of teaching them specific knowledge, skills, or perspective; or (2) the opinion is part of the U.S. administrative law canon – i.e., the opinion is one that every well-educated administrative lawyer has studied. You might be surprised by how few judicial opinions fit the bill.
• Second. The book becomes progressively more challenging as students become increasingly well-grounded in administrative law principles, themes, and problem solving skills. The book’s organization is transparent throughout. Earlier chapters, however, give more scaffolding for student’s construction of knowledge and analytic skills than later chapters.
• Third. The book includes multiple methods – including, but not limited to the use of problems – for getting students to think. The book includes problems at the beginning of most chapters to (1) illustrate what kinds of situations raise issues that are analyzed using the material they are about to learn; and (2) to provide opportunities to practice applying what they have learned from the chapter. But the use of problems is not the only way to encourage active learning, and overreliance on problems poses, well, problems for students who learn best by beginning with broad principles before descending to the particulars. (I call these students “top down” learners.) The book thus includes, for example, exercises that help students learn to construct their own scaffolding by making outlines, checklists, and graphic organizers.
The other aspect of the book that may strike the reader is its militant embrace of a practitioner’s perspective, rather than an academic perspective. For example, whenever the book raises policy issues, the book explains why they matter to an attorney whose client has a matter before, or is itself, an agency. When the book questions the reasoning of court opinions or the soundness of current law, the book does so to suggest opportunities for advocates to change the law. To cite another example of its practitioner perspective, the book continually emphasizes the importance of building a favorable record for agency decision making and suggests ways to build such a record in various settings.
I hope you like these chapters. In any event, I will be grateful for your constructive feedback.
Keywords: administrative law, administrative agencies, separation of powers, organic statute, enabling legislation, statutory research
JEL Classification: K23
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation