Administrative Remedies

Too Early, Too Incomplete, Or Too Late: Ripeness, Exhaustion, and Mootness

In 1963, the FDA told drug manufacturers that every time they used a brand name, on a label, in an ad, anywhere, they had to print the generic name alongside it. The rule

Is Anything Ever Really Final? Finality, Guidance, and Bennett v. Spear

In 2012, the EEOC issued enforcement guidance on how employers should handle arrest and conviction records. It wasn't a regulation. It never went through notice and comme

National Park Service v. National Trust: Who Gets to Sue Over the Ballroom

Alison Hoagland has lived on Capitol Hill since 1977, about two miles from the White House. She's an architectural historian, a professor emerita at Michigan Tech, the au

Someday Isn't Imminent: Standing and Who Gets to Sue an Agency

In 1986, Joyce Kelly traveled to Egypt to see the habitat of the endangered Nile crocodile, and she swore she meant to go back. That affidavit was supposed to get Defende

Birthright Citizenship and Mail Voting: Two Executive Orders, Two Very Different Days in Court

Two executive orders came from the same desk, and the government gave the same defense for both: the challenge came too early, because nothing had happened to anyone yet.

So Many Cases Die at the Door: What Judicial Review Actually Is

Loper Bright Enterprises sued the Secretary of Commerce, and the case had no trial, no depositions, and no discovery. It was decided on cross-motions for summary judgment

Mullin v. Doe: When Courts Can't Look

Fritz Miot has lived in California for fifteen years under Temporary Protected Status, working in an Alzheimer's research lab while managing a diabetes diagnosis that Hai

Trump v. Slaughter: The End of the Independent Agency

For ninety years, Congress could build federal agencies designed to operate at arm's length from the president. Bipartisan commissions, staggered terms, for-cause removal

No Right to a Lawyer: Asylum from Inside Detention

A visitation room in a private detention facility in rural Louisiana. Cinderblock walls, fluorescent lights, two plastic chairs bolted to the floor. Elena is on one side.

700 Judges, 3.2 Million Cases: The System That Decides Asylum Cases

Two asylum seekers cross the southern border six months apart. Same country, same persecution, same statute. A clerk neither of them has ever met routes one to the regula

The Framework That Decides Disability

Until June 2024, the Social Security Administration was denying disability claims on the grounds that applicants could work as pneumatic tube operators — a job that funct

Nobody Said Deny More Cases: How Agency Preferences Reach the Hearing Room

In the final episode of a three-part series on how agencies actually produce outcomes, Gwen and Marc trace the mechanisms that did the work — all of them upstream of the

The Review Layer Doesn't Fix It — Three Things Agency Review Does Instead

In 2018, Attorney General Jeff Sessions reached into a single immigration case, certified it to himself, and overruled the precedent that had let domestic violence surviv

The Forty-Six Point Spread: Why Your Outcome Depends on Who You Get, Who Represents You, and Where You Live

A 2017 GAO study found that Social Security disability outcomes could swing by forty-six percentage points based solely on which ALJ heard the case. Same claimant, same r

Same Evidence, Different Outcomes: How Credibility and Burden of Proof Decide What Happens in the Hearing Room

Two claimants walk into two hearing rooms in the same building on the same day. Same herniated disc, same imaging, same attorneys, same legal standard. One walks out with

The Lifecycle of an Administrative Case: How the Record Gets Built Before You Walk Into the Room

An insurance adjuster spends thirty minutes on your roof, photographs what they photograph, and writes "minor cosmetic damage" instead of "structural compromise." That ch

Jarkesy Jumps to the FTC

Less than two years after the Supreme Court's decision in SEC v. Jarkesy, the Fifth Circuit has applied the same constitutional logic to the FTC — and the implications ar

The Right to a Jury: SEC v. Jarkesy and the Limits of Agency Enforcement

The parents leave a rule: milk with dinner. The babysitter enforces it — no problem. But when one kid hits the other, does the babysitter handle that too? She saw the who

Mathews Applied: Due Process, Habeas Corpus, and Immigration

Can the government send you to a foreign prison without giving you any way to say, "You've got the wrong person"? In this companion episode to their Matthews v. Eldridge

How Much Process Are You Actually Due: The Mathews Balancing Test

Tornado watches, warnings, and sirens don't all mean the same thing — and if you live in Oklahoma, you know you don't even run to a shelter every time a siren goes off. Y