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Chapter 13: Advanced Administrative Research

Deeper agency work — guidance documents, policy statements, opinion letters, and adjudications — and recording exactly how much weight each carries after Loper Bright.

Orientation

Explore the concepts from this chapter

Beyond the Rule

Guidance documents, opinion letters, and administrative adjudications — what binds, what persuades, and the research discipline of logging an authority level with every finding.

What this module will let you do

The three families of agency material
What binds and what persuades
The deference timeline, post-Loper Bright

Practice

Apply what you’ve learned

Weigh the Agency Materials

Seven client situations turning on which agency material controls: regulation versus FAQ, the binding-or-guidance test, and the answer that starts with naming the document type.

What this module will let you do

Rule vs. guidance vs. adjudication, in the ranking
Record an authority level for every finding
The Skidmore persuasion factors, applied