Paul Verkuil Confirmed as Chairman of the Administrative Conference of the United States

I have posted before about the reincarnation of the Administrative Conference of the United States (ACUS).

Last November I noted that the President intended to nominate Paul Verkuil as Chairman of ACUS.

On March 3, 2010 the Senate confirmed Mr. Verkuil.

This is good news. ACUS will add some light to the debates about good government and process. Congratulations Paul Verkuil. I wish you and ACUS well.

More on ACUS

On September 18, 2009 I posted about the Administrative Conference of the United States (ACUS), noting that ACUS was going to be newly reconstituted, starting with the appointment by the President of a Chairman. Last week I received a comment asking if I had any updated information on ACUS, and how folks can keep track of the progress.

In an answer to the first question, I have reprinted a press release from The White House, Office of the Press Secretary announcing the President’s intent to nominate a Chair of ACUS.

November 2, 2009, WASHINGTON – Today, President Barack Obama announced his intent to nominate the following individuals to key administration posts … Paul R. Verkuil, Nominee for Chairman, Administrative Conference of the United States.

Paul R. Verkuil is a public law scholar and academic administrator. He is currently senior counsel to Boies, Schiller & Flexner LLP, where he oversees the firm’s Pro Bono program and participates in antitrust and corporate governance matters. Verkuil is also a professor at Cardozo School of Law. Previously, he has served as President of the College of William & Mary, Dean of Tulane and Cardozo Law Schools, Acting Dean of the University of Miami Law School, and CEO of the American Automobile Association. His legal activities include appointment as Special Master by the U.S. Supreme Court in the original jurisdiction case of New Jersey v. New York, which determined sovereignty to Ellis Island, and appointment as Special Master by the Fifth Circuit in U.S. v. Louisiana, a higher education desegregation case. He is a member of the board of the National Constitution Center, the Statute of Liberty – Ellis Island Foundation, and the Innocence Project. He has published over 60 articles on administrative law and regulation topics and is the coauthor of Administrative Law and Process. His most recent book, Outsourcing Sovereignty, addresses the problem of contracting out essential functions of government. He was chair of the Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice Section of the ABA and a consultant to and member of the Administrative Conference of the United States. He earned an A.B. from William & Mary, an LL.B. from Virginia Law School, and a J.S.D. from NYU Law School. He was an active duty officer in the United State Army from 1962 to 1964.

In response to the second question (how to keep track of the nomination and confirmation and the staffing of this gem of an agency) I will keep track and post whatever information I see about ACUS. So keep an eye here and I will post updates whenever I hear anything.

The Administrative Conference of the United States Returns

How many of you have heard of the Administrative Conference of the United States (“ACUS”)? My guess is that unless you are administrative law cognoscenti you have never heard of ACUS. Yet in some ways ACUS has touched all ADR practitioners and those who represent parties in disputes with the government; ACUS was responsible for the intellectual and legal basis for much of ADR in, by, and around the federal government.

ACUS was a small government administrative law think tank that addressed government processes; it lost its funding during the mid-1990s government cost cutting but has been reauthorized by Congress and funded by $1.5 million for FY 2009.

Prior to its demise, ACUS organized and facilitated administrative law experts’ studies of many aspects of the problems affecting government decision-making, especially administrative rule-making and settlement of enforcement matters, and it recommended ways to improve regulatory efficiency.

It was composed of about 100 members from academia, government and private law practice serving on a volunteer basis and had a permanent staff of about 20 at the time it closed. Despite its small staff and the voluntary nature of its members, ACUS produced numerous studies, reports and recommendations that suggested how to improve government administrative processes.

In the early 1980s ACUS recognized that ADR techniques could be used to resolve disputes and develop federal government regulations. ACUS developed the reports and intellectual underpinning that let to much greater use of ADR by the federal government (e.g., Administrative Conference of the U. S., Sourcebook: Federal Agency Use of Alternative Dispute Resolution by Marguerite S. Millhauser and Charles Pou, Jr., (Office of the Chairman, 1987) and Negotiated Rulemaking Sourcebook by David M. Pritzker and Deborah S. Dalton (Office of the Chairman, 1995)).

ACUS set the framework for the Administrative Dispute Resolution Act (ADRA, the reauthorized version of which can be found at 5 U.S.C.A. § 571) and the Negotiated Rulemaking Act (now codified at 5 U.S.C. §§ 561-570), and it brought ADR techniques out of the federal government’s closet and into common usage.

Published reports suggest that the White House may announce a nominee to chair a newly reconstituted Administrative Conference of the United States (ACUS) before the current fiscal year ends on September 30. A new ACUS chairman would have the authority to hire staff and set up the agency.

According to these reports, Paul R. Verkuil, a prominent administrative law professor at Yeshiva University's Cardozo Law School in New York appears to be the leading choice to be nominated for ACUS chairman. Verkuil, a former president of the College of William and Mary, was also dean of Cardozo and Tulane Law Schools.

ACUS will improve the discourse about administrative practice and the use of ADR techniques by and around the government and on how to increase the public’s knowledge and involvement in the federal government.

This is great news.

Keywords: mediation, alternative dispute resolution, adr, alternative dispute resolution, acus, administrative conference of the united states, administrative conference