One of the most frequent questions I get from other junior administrative law professors is whether they should attend the Administrative Law Conference held each October and sponsored by the American Bar Association Section of Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice.  My answer is always a resounding YES, and that applies to anyone who researches, teaches, or practices administrative law and regulation.

I went last year for the first time to present a paper on administrative law’s ordinary remand rule.  And I’ll be returning for this year’s conference, which starts tomorrow (10/16) and continues on Friday (10/17), as a spectator.  It’s a must-attend event for administrative law scholars and practitioners, especially those interested in the intersection of theory and practice.

Take a look at this year’s excellent program here. Tomorrow there are a number of terrific panels, including one on interpreting the Administrative Procedure Act with Emily Hammond, Kathryn Kovacs, and Gillian Metzger.  Another is on administrative constitutionalism (how agencies can/should interpret and implement the Constitution), featuring Martin Lederman, Sophia Lee, Mark Lloyd, and Roger Martella.  And there’s a fascinating panel on the Administrative Conference of the United States, providing a judicial view of ACUS from Judges S. Jay Plager, Patricia McGowan Wald, Stephen Williams, and John Walker.

Friday’s sessions include the signature two-part series on Developments in Administrative Law, in which experts review the year’s highlights in constitutional law (William Funk), adjudication (Michael Asimow), rulemaking (William Jordan), scope of judicial review (Kathryn Watts), and access to courts (Richard Murphy).  Among the other terrific panels on Friday is one on Auerdeference (judicial deference to an agency’s interpretation of its own regulation), featuring Scott Angstreich, Aditi Prabhu, Matthew Stephenson, and Amy Wildermuth.

As this lineup demonstrates, this is a must-attend event for the curricular programming, but it’s also a great opportunity to network with hundreds of other adlaw practitioners from both inside and outside of government.  Last year it seemed like just about every agency official I interviewed for my empirical study on agency statutory interpretation was in attendance. So if you’re in DC tomorrow and Friday and haven’t already registered to participate — even putting aside all the CLE credits you’ll receive — it’s definitely worth adding the conference to your calendar and spending at least one of the two days learning about recent developments and research in administrative law and regulation.