Spring Conference and Council Meeting

The Section's Spring Conference and Council Meetings will take place Friday-Sunday, April 20-22, in Princeton, NJ.

On Friday, April 20, the Section, along with Princeton’s Program in Law and Public Affairs and Center for Information Technology Policy, is hosting a symposium on “The Administrative Agency in the Electronic Age.”  Speakers from the ad law professoriat include Cary Coglianese, Cynthia Farina, Tino Cuéllar, Gregg Macey, Frank Pasquale, and Kevin Werbach.  They will be joined by a passel of dazzling and knowledgeable agency lawyers, including Neil Eisner from DoT, Carol Ann Siciliano from EPA, Laura DeMartino from the FTC, Kathy Conrad from GSA, and the new associate administrator of OIRA, Jeff Weiss.  The luncheon keynote will be given by Theresa Pardo, who runs the Center for Technology in Government at SUNY Albany.  The program is free (unless you want CLE credit, for which Section members receive a discount), though there’s a modest charge for lunch; advance registration is encouraged.  Details and a registration form are available here.

Then on Saturday and Sunday mornings, April 21 and 22, the Section Council will be holding its meetings.  These will take place not at the University but at the Chauncey Center.

This will be an interesting Council meeting.  A full agenda is and materials are available on the Section website.

• revisions to the Blackletter Statement of Administrative Law;
• consideration of three resolutions for the House of Delegates – one on international regulatory cooperation, one on government contractor ethics, and one on disclosure of political expenditures;
• comments to the Office of the Federal Register regarding the pending petition for rulemaking regarding Incorporation by Reference;
• comments on pending legislation requiring the use of plain language in the text of regulations; and
• a report from and conversation with Assistant OIRA Administrator Jeff Weiss.

Finally, on Saturday night there will be the usual Section dinner, which will take place at the Chauncey Center.  Folks are more than welcome at the dinner even if they attend nothing else.  Our special guest will be Jonathan Oberlander,  a professor from the University of North Carolina Schools of Medicine and Public Health who is a visiting fellow at Princeton this year.  Jon is one of the leading contemporary experts on what is perhaps the central domestic policy and legal issue of the day: health care.  There are still spaces for the dinner; you can sign up using the same form as for Friday's panels.

Administrative Law Writing Competitions

Two administrative law writing competitions may be of interest.

The first is the Section's Gellhorn-Sargentich Student Essay Competition.  The assigned topic is: "Discuss any topic relating to administrative law."  The essay can be a paper submitted for a graded law school course, a law review note or comment, or something written specifically for the competition.  The competition is open only to current students at ABA-accredited law schools who are members of the Section.  (Students can join the ABA for next to nothing and join the Section for literally nothing.)

The winner will receive a $5,000 cash prize and round-trip airfare and accommodation to attend the Section’s Fall Conference in Washington, DC.  At the discretion of the respective editorial boards, the winning entry may be published in the Administrative and Regulatory Law News and/or the Administrative Law Review.

The submissions deadline is April 1, 2012.  Full details here.

Second, the American Constitution Society sponsors an annual writing competition named for Judge Richard Cudahy of the 7th Circuit.  Like the Gellhorn-Sargentich competition, the Cudahy competition welcomes submissions on any topic in the area of administrative law.  And unlike the GS competition, it is open not just to law students but to lawyers and law professors as well.  ACS picks one student winner and one lawyer winner; each receives $1500.  The submissions deadline is February 12, 2012.  Full details here.