Improving Agency Adjudication Offices

Every year, federal administrative agencies hold hearings, render decisions, and decide appeals in hundreds of thousands of cases involving a wide range of regulatory matters. These may include benefits for veterans and people with disabilities, eligibility for health care coverage, or the ability of noncitizens to remain in the United States, to name just a few.

Agencies adjudicate through specific components, often below the agency head level, that are responsible primarily for conducting hearings or reviewing the decisions of lower-level adjudicators. These adjudication offices go by various names, including “Office of Hearings and Appeals,” “Office of Administrative Law Judges,” “Appeals Council,” or “Board of Appeals.”

How are adjudication offices organized, managed, and operated? Statutes and regulations may answer some aspects of this question. For instance, the Administrative Procedure Act contains various provisions governing formal adjudication presided over by administrative law judges.  Agencies are also required to publish descriptions of their central and field organization in the Federal Register. In addition, agency-specific statutes or regulations may establish specific organizational, managerial, and operational requirements and procedures. For the most part, however, no single structure or uniform set of rules applies across the administrative state.

In the absence of uniformity, individual agencies retain significant discretion in organizing, managing, and operating their adjudication offices. How agencies exercise that discretion can have a significant impact on the fairness, accuracy, consistency, and timeliness of agency adjudication.

In 2024, the Administrative Conference of the United States (ACUS) commissioned a report to study the organization, management, and operation of adjudication offices. Although prior ACUS reports highlighted various organizational and managerial dimensions of agency adjudication, ACUS had not directly studied the topic for several decades.

The report is based on findings from case studies of nine administrative agencies, such as the Social Security Administration and Executive Office for Immigration Review, which reflect 15 distinct adjudication offices. The agencies studied adjudicate a broad spectrum of case types and reflect variation in their organizational structures and management practices. They include agencies with extensive, high-volume adjudicatory systems and multiple field offices and agencies with relatively small adjudication offices. Some of the adjudication offices studied are well known for their adjudication of a distinct subject matter, such as Social Security or veterans’ benefits. Others adjudicate dozens of types of matters that are governed by a wide array of statutory and regulatory authorities, as is the case with adjudication offices at the Department of Labor.

The report addresses organization, management, and operation at a range of levels. It first provides an overview of how agencies place their adjudication offices within broader agency hierarchies and examines the placement of adjudication offices in relation to other agency components as well as agency heads. It also explores the internal reporting structures of adjudication offices, including the existence of multi-level national, regional, and local management and the internal structures governing local adjudication offices. It pays particular attention to the roles of chief administrative law judges, chief judges, and directors, who often serve as the heads of adjudication offices.

The report identifies some of the main management tools used by adjudication office heads, which can include a broad range of practices, such as reliance on written guidance documents and instruction manuals, performance appraisals, and the organization of legal support personnel. Finally, the report explores how adjudication office resources are structured as well as the degree to which they interact with other agency components, such as budgeting or information technology offices, and entities outside the agency.

Relying on the report, ACUS adopted Recommendation 2026-3 at its January 21, 2026, plenary session. Building upon prior ACUS recommendations related to adjudication, the recommendation offers agencies a general framework for organizing, managing, and operating their adjudication offices. Specifically, the recommendation emphasizes the collection, analysis, and use of data to enable agencies to evaluate and improve the timeliness, efficiency, and quality of their adjudications. By encouraging data-based practices, the recommendation seeks to strengthen agencies’ ability to identify the organizational, management, and operational practices most effective for their particular circumstances and core administrative law values.

The recommendation also encourages agencies to designate high-level officials within adjudication offices who are responsible for performing or overseeing essential management duties and offers guidance on how to select those officials, as well as how to structure their positions. Along those lines, the recommendation prompts agencies to use a broad range of tools to manage adjudicators and support personnel and provide dedicated resources to high-volume adjudication offices.

Finally, the recommendation encourages agencies to evaluate periodically their organization, management, and operational practices, and demonstrate transparency by keeping the public informed about the organization, management, and operation of their adjudication offices.

This recommendation provides agencies with the opportunity to increase public trust, engage in evidence-based evaluations and decision-making, and better fulfill values such as fairness, accuracy, consistency, and timeliness in the adjudication of matters that impact broad sectors of society.

Jennifer Lee Koh is an associate professor of law at the Pepperdine University Caruso School of Law.

Lea Robbins is an attorney advisor at the Administrative Conference of the United States.