Administrative Law Research
There is an old, factually debunked, humorous myth about government regulations:
Pythagorean theorem: 24 words
The Lord’s Prayer: 66 words
Archimedes’ Principle: 67 words
The Ten Commandments: 179 words
The Gettysburg Address: 286 words
The Declaration of Independence: 1,300 words
The US government regulations on the sale of cabbage: 26,911 words
Angst about the depth and breadth of executive regulations is often fueled by the difficulty of administrative law research. Administrative law researchers must find any controlling regulations, the statutory authority under which the agency promulgated the regulations, any appellate court decisions that interpret or review the regulation or agency action, agency decisions with precedential weight, and guidance documents, policies, or rules that do not rise to the level of regulation but are applied as such by the agency. These tasks are complicated by the uneven publication of agency decisions and sub-regulatory guidance documents.
Federal administrative law research requires access to the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR), the Federal Register, the United States Code, federal case law, and specific federal agency decisions and other agency publications. Day-to-day online regulatory research should be done using e-CFR which updates the CFR daily with new Final Regulations and amendments to existing regulations. E-CFR is updated within two business days with notice that “[w]hile we try to ensure that the material on the e-CFR is accurate, those relying on it for legal research should verify their results against the most current official edition of the CFR, the daily Federal Register, and the List of CFR Sections Affected (LSA), all available online at www.govinfo.gov.” The University of Minnesota Law Library has an excellent, in-depth Federal Administrative Law Research Guide.
Washington administrative law research starts with the Washington Administrative Code (WAC) which is maintained by the Office of the Code Reviser. Each agency’s regulations are in the WAC and can be searched online. The WAC includes hyperlinks to the statutory authority for each regulation in the Revised Code of Washington (RCW). Key overarching statutes about regulations include the Administrative Procedure Act at RCW 34.05 and the Regulatory Fairness Act at RCW 19.85. The Office of the Code Reviser also provides a WAC Archive back to 1977 and earlier paper copies of the WAC are available from the Washington State Law Library back to the early 1970s. The Washington State Register updates the WAC with new regulations and amendments to existing regulations. The Office of the Code Reviser has made the Washington State Register available online back to the initial 1978 issues along with an in-depth flow chart of the regulatory creation process.
Finding agency decisions and sub-regulatory agency guidance documents is a more frustrating task in Washington. Many agencies, including the Office of Administrative Hearings, do not publish all of their decisions. Some agencies, such as the Board of Industrial Insurance Appeals or the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction publish decisions with varying degrees of precedential authority. Be sure to contact the agency if you cannot find the decisions you are seeking. You may need to file a public records request to get access to the information you need. Westlaw, available on the State Law Library public computers, also has an extensive collection of Washington administrative decisions. The Washington State Library is also a good source for Washington State government publications.
There are several useful legal treatises for administrative law research. Local administrative lawyers in Washington write and update the Washington Administrative Law Practice Manual which is published by LexisNexis. The top two national administrative law treatises are the Administrative Law Treatise, 6th edition by Hickman & Pierce and Administrative Law and Practice, 3d edition by Koch. Please visit the State Law Library to use these publications and for assistance with your administrative law research needs. (RM)
