Administrative law can be defined as the body of constitutional provisions, statutes, court decisions, executive orders, and other official directives that first regulate the procedures agencies use in adjudicating, rulemaking, and adopting policies, control the exercise of their authority to enforce laws and regulations, and govern the extent to which administration is open to public scrutiny (i.e., transparent); and, second, provide for review of agency decisions, rules, orders, policies, actions, and other aspects of their operations.

In short, administrative law is the regulatory law of public administration. It regulates how public administrative agencies do what they do and why, as well as their authority to do it. As such, it is among the most important aspects of modern government. We are all affected by administrative law in myriad ways in our daily lives.

For the most part, administrative law is generic in the sense that one size fits all. Although there are apt to be exceptions, it more or less applies across the board to administrative agencies within a government, as opposed to being tailored to match each agency’s mission individually. The distinction is imperfect because administrative law provides for judicial review of agencies’ rules, standards, and adjudicatory decisions, which may be found unlawful if their content is irrational or their scope is beyond the law.

Moreover, administrative law, with the exception of some forms of adjudication, is not concerned with agency decisions regarding internal personnel, organizational, budgetary, outsourcing, and similar administrative matters. All levels of government in the United States rely on some form of administrative law to regulate their administrative activities. In the absence of US Supreme Court constitutional law decisions applying to all jurisdictions, the requirements of federal, state, and local administrative law need not be uniform. In fact, there is substantial variation.

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