Administrative Decisions

Administrative agencies are typically charged with enforcing the rules they promulgate. In this enforcement capacity, an agency may issue a variety of formal and informal adjudicative materials, including guidance, opinions, rulings, memoranda, orders, directives, decisions, or arbitrations. Unlike federal rules, there is no single source for accessing all adjudicative materials, and researchers may need to review a variety of resources to find a particular document, if indeed it was published and made publicly available.

Current administrative decisions and materials are frequently published to the website of a federal agency. Other sources of administrative materials (with examples) are:

Agency-specific reporters (e.g., Environmental Administrative Decisions by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency)
Looseleaf services (e.g., Immigration Law Service 2d by Thomson Reuters)
U.S. Code Service (annotated U.S. Code published by LexisNexis; contains references to federal agency decisions)
Subscription electronic databases (see below)

Some agency rulings or orders are appealed to a United States Court of Appeals. Case law resulting from these matters can be found in various print and online resources. For information about researching and finding case law, use the following companion research guides:

Subscription Databases

Several subscription legal research databases offer access to federal agency administrative decisions. The following subscription databases (marked with a padlock ) are available onsite at the Library of Congress:

Bloomberg Law (Patron Access) External
Bloomberg Law practitioner resources include:
- Court Dockets: Federal and select state and foreign jurisdiction court dockets and court documents
- BNA publications, newsletters and current awareness sources and law reports; subject areas include: antitrust, banking, bankruptcy, corporate and securities, criminal law, employee benefits, employment and labor, environment and safety, ethics, family law, health care, homeland security, intellectual property, international law (e.g., environmental, tax, trade), litigation, product liability, tax, trade and commerce
- Treatises in various subject areas from publishers such as American Bankruptcy Institute, ABA, Bloomberg BNA, James Publishing, and Wiley Press
- Practice Centers: access primary and secondary resources in fields of law such as antitrust, banking and finance, bankruptcy, corporate/M&A, environment, health, intellectual property, labor and employment, privacy and data security, securities, and tax (including Tax Management Portfolios)
- Litigation Analytics (by Company, Law Firm, or Judge)
- Sample documents, forms, and checklists (see, Transactional Precedents, Practical Guidance, and Practitioner Tools)
- EDGAR
- Federal and State primary law (statutory codes, court cases, regulations)
- BCite legal citator
Access only available in the Law Library Reading Room; see library staff for assistance.
CCH AnswerConnect External This link opens in a new window
Provides full text access to documents in business and finance, human resources, health care and tax research. The CCH libraries which can be searched simultaneously include:
- Tax News, Journals and Newsletters
- Federal Tax
- State Tax
- International Tax
- Accounting and Audit
- Benefits
- Financial and Estate Planning
- Food, Drugs, and Devices
- Fringe Benefits
- Health Care Compliance and Reimbursement
- Human Resources
- Pension
- Tools/Smart Charts
- Unemployment Insurance Reporter
The simultaneous user limit for parts of this resources may result in temporary delays.
VitalLaw External This link opens in a new window
VitalLaw includes full-text primary sources of law with commentary, a variety of CCH and Aspen legal publications, smart charts, practical tools, news, webinars, white papers, and blogs. Practice areas covered include corporate & securities, labor & employment, intellectual property, healthcare, human resources, intellectual property and tax. The Library has access to the Healthcare, Employee Benefits, and Pension practice areas. The database also includes the title "The Law of Lawyering" by Geoffrey C. Hazard, Jr., W. William Hodes, Peter R. Jarvis, and Trisha Thompson.
HeinOnline U.S. Federal Agency Documents, Decisions, and Appeals External This link opens in a new window
The U.S. Federal Agency Documents, Decisions, and Appeals Library is a complete collection of the official case law of some of the United States most important government institutions. Also included in this collection are 25 of the Government Printing Office's best selling legal titles. Notable titles in this collection include: Decisions of the National Labor Relations Board (1935-Current) Federal Communications Commission Record (1986-Current) and the Federal Communications Commission of the United States. Internal Revenue Cumulative Bulletin (1919-Current).
Nexis Uni External This link opens in a new window
Contains over 6,000 news, business, and legal sources, including deep backfiles and up-to-the-minute stories in national and regional newspapers, wire services, broadcast transcripts, international news, and non-English language sources. Use the included Company Dossier module to retrieve detailed company information and financial performance measures or identify and compare companies matching specific criteria. Areas covered include:
- NEWS Full text of hundreds of newspapers, magazines, and newswires from the U.S. and around the world Hard-to-find broadcast transcripts from the major television and radio Spanish, French, German, Italian, Dutch and other foreign-language newspapers and magazines
- LEGAL Comprehensive coverage of US federal and state case law and statutory law Law review articles from over 500 publications Legal news from more than 300 legal newspapers, magazines, and newsletters Patents from 1971 forward
- BUSINESS Company Dossier service, including detailed financial and operating data on over 43 million US and international companies Business and trade publications SEC filings
Westlaw Patron Access
Westlaw Patron Access provides access to up-to-date legal information from Westlaw, including case headnotes and synopses, Table of Contents service, Key Cite, West Key Number System, and KeySearch.
Access to this site is only available from the Law Library Reading Room.
The simultaneous user limit for this resource may result in temporary delays.

Legal Research: A Guide to Administrative Law

Administrative Decisions

Subscription Databases