Administrative judge

Administrative State
Five Pillars of the Administrative State
• Nondelegation • Judicial deference • Executive control • Procedural rights • Agency dynamics
Click here for more coverage of the administrative state on Ballotpedia

See also: Federal administrative adjudicators

Administrative judge (AJ), in the context of federal administrative law, refers to a federal agency employee who presides over informal administrative adjudication proceedings. Adjudication proceedings include agency determinations outside of the rulemaking process that aim to resolve disputes between either agencies and private parties or between two private parties. Administrative judges are hired directly by federal agencies to conduct informal adjudication, which makes up nearly 90 percent of all adjudication proceedings and is often applied to benefits-related decisions as well as cases concerning immigration, equal employment, government contracts, or security clearance issues.^{[1][2][3][4][5][6][7]}

Background

An administrative judge, also known as a hearing examiner or a hearing officer, is a federal agency employee who presides over informal administrative adjudication proceedings. Administrative judges have the authority to administer oaths, receive testimony and evidence, make fact findings, and issue adjudicative orders. Informal adjudication proceedings often involve benefits-related decisions as well as cases concerning immigration, equal employment, government contracts, or security clearances.^[1][2][8]

According to research by Kent Barnett, a professor of administrative law at the University of Georgia School of Law, the agencies that employ the highest numbers of administrative judges are the U.S. Department of Commerce, the Internal Revenue Service, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, the U.S. Department of Justice, and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.^[9]

Many state and local entities have authorized their own administrative judges with varying degrees of scope and authority.^[10]

Administrative law judge vs. administrative judge

See also: Administrative law judge

The federal government employed nearly 2,000 administrative law judges and more than 10,000 administrative judges and other non-ALJ adjudicators as of 2017, the most recent year for which comprehensive data was available at the time of this article's last update in March 2024. Unlike administrative law judges, who are officers of the United States and must be appointed by the president, the courts, or agency heads, administrative judges are hired directly by agencies. As such, administrative judges do not share in the statutory protections from removal, discipline, and performance reviews that ALJs receive under the Administrative Procedure Act. According to Paul Verkuil, former chairman of the Administrative Conference of the United States, administrative judges generally have less independence than administrative law judges, are compensated at a lower rate, and have less job security.^{[11][12][1][9]}

Qualifications

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, administrative judges generally have a law degree and work experience as an attorney. However, some administrative judge positions only require an undergraduate degree.^[10]

Data on non-ALJ adjudicators

See also: Federal administrative adjudicators

The Administrative Conference of the United States (ACUS), an independent federal agency tasked with developing recommendations to improve federal administrative processes, published a draft report on non-ALJ adjudicators on February 14, 2018. The report contained the most up-to-date data as of the last update for this article in March 2024. The report included survey data about non-ALJs collected from at least one subcomponent of 53 federal agencies. Surveys were sent to 64 agencies. The ACUS report highlights the difficulty of describing non-ALJs and the work they do, noting in the introduction that "these Non-ALJ Hearings do not share a statutory framework. Nor do the non-ALJs themselves." The report later describes the variety of titles used by non-ALJs:^[4]

Non-ALJs by the numbers

Non-ALJs by agency
The following table shows the number of full- and part-time non-ALJs employed by various federal agencies:

Non-ALJ titles
The following table shows the various titles that agencies use for their non-ALJ adjudicators:

See also

• Adjudication
• Administrative law judge
• Rulemaking
• Administrative Conference of the United States

External links

• U.S. Office of Personnel Management homepage
• Search Google News for this topic

Footnotes

v • e The Administrative State Main The Administrative State Project main page • Administrative State Project Index • Glossary of administrative state terms • Quotes about the administrative state • Administrative state • Rulemaking • Deference • Adjudication • Nondelegation doctrine Reporting Changes to the Federal Register • Completed OIRA review of federal administrative agency rules • Federal agency rules repealed under the Congressional Review Act • Historical additions to the Federal Register, 1936-2016 • Pages added monthly to the Federal Register, 1995-2017 Laws Administrative Procedure Act • Antiquities Act • Civil Service Reform Act • Clayton Antitrust Act • Communications Act of 1934 • Congressional Review Act • Electronic Freedom of Information Act • Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act of 1938 • Federal Housekeeping Statute • Federal Reserve Act • Federal Trade Commission Act of 1914 • Freedom of Information Act • Government in the Sunshine Act • Independent Offices Appropriations Act of 1952 • Information Quality Act • Interstate Commerce Act • National Labor Relations Act • Paperwork Reduction Act • Pendleton Act • Privacy Act of 1974 • Regulatory Flexibility Act • REINS Act • REINS Act (Wisconsin) • Securities Act of 1933 • Securities Exchange Act of 1934 • Sherman Antitrust Act • Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act • Truth in Regulating Act • Unfunded Mandates Reform Act Cases Abbott Laboratories v. Gardner • A.L.A. Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States • Association of Data Processing Service Organizations v. Camp • Auer v. Robbins • Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council • Citizens to Preserve Overton Park v. Volpe • Federal Trade Commission (FTC) v. Standard Oil Company of California • Field v. Clark • Food and Drug Administration v. Brown and Williamson Tobacco Corporation • Humphrey's Executor v. United States • Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) v. Chadha • J.W. Hampton Jr. & Company v. United States • Lucia v. SEC • Marshall v. Barlow's • Massachusetts v. Environmental Protection Agency • Mistretta v. United States • National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) v. Sebelius • National Labor Relations Board v. Noel Canning Company • National Labor Relations Board v. Sears, Roebuck & Co. • Panama Refining Co. v. Ryan • Securities and Exchange Commission v. Chenery Corporation • Skidmore v. Swift & Co. • United States v. Lopez • United States v. Western Pacific Railroad Co. • Universal Camera Corporation v. National Labor Relations Board • Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Corp. v. Natural Resources Defense Council • Wayman v. Southard • Weyerhaeuser Company v. United States Fish and Wildlife Service • Whitman v. American Trucking Associations • Wickard v. Filburn • Wiener v. United States Terms Adjudication (administrative state) • Administrative judge • Administrative law • Administrative law judge • Administrative state • Arbitrary-or-capricious test • Auer deference • Barrier to entry • Bootleggers and Baptists • Chevron deference (doctrine) • Civil servant • Civil service • Code of Federal Regulations • Codify (administrative state) • Comment period • Compliance costs • Congressional Record • Coordination (administrative state) • Deference (administrative state) • Direct and indirect costs (administrative state) • Enabling statute • Ex parte communication (administrative state) • Executive agency • Federal law • Federal Register • Federalism • Final rule • Formal rulemaking • Formalism (law) • Functionalism (law) • Guidance (administrative state) • Hybrid rulemaking • Incorporation by reference • Independent federal agency • Informal rulemaking • Joint resolution of disapproval (administrative state) • Major rule • Negotiated rulemaking • Nondelegation doctrine • OIRA prompt letter • Organic statute • Pragmatism (law) • Precautionary principle • Promulgate • Proposed rule • Publication rulemaking • Regulatory budget • Regulatory capture • Regulatory dark matter • Regulatory impact analysis • Regulatory policy officer • Regulatory reform officer • Regulatory review • Rent seeking • Retrospective regulatory review • Risk assessment (administrative state) • Rulemaking • Separation of powers • Significant regulatory action • Skidmore deference • Statutory authority • Substantive law and procedural law • Sue and settle • Sunset provision • Unified Agenda of Federal Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions • United States Code • United States Statutes at Large Bibliography "Administrative Law - The 20th Century Bequeaths an 'Illegitimate Exotic' in Full and Terrifying Flower" by Stephen P. Dresch (2000) "Confronting the Administrative Threat" by Philip Hamburger and Tony Mills (2017) "Constitutionalism after the New Deal" by Cass R. Sunstein (1987) Federalist No. 23 by Alexander Hamilton (1787) "From Administrative State to Constitutional Government" by Joseph Postell (2012) "Interring the Nondelegation Doctrine" by Eric A. Posner and Adrian Vermeule (2002) "Rulemaking as Legislating" by Kathryn Watts (2015) "The Checks & Balances of the Regulatory State" by Paul R. Verkuil (2016) "The Myth of the Nondelegation Doctrine" by Keith E. Whittington and Jason Iuliano (2017) "The Progressive Origins of the Administrative State: Wilson, Goodnow, and Landis" by Ronald J. Pestritto (2007) "The Rise and Rise of the Administrative State" by Gary Lawson (1994) "The Study of Administration" by Woodrow Wilson (1887) "The Threat to Liberty" by Steven F. Hayward (2017) "Why the Modern Administrative State Is Inconsistent with the Rule of Law" by Richard A. Epstein (2008) Agencies Administrative Conference of the United States • United States Civil Service Commission • U.S. Government Accountability Office • U.S. Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs • U.S. Office of Management and Budget