The U.S. Supreme Court and the Future of Administrative Law

The current conservative super-majority on the U.S. Supreme Court has a chance to reshape American law in a dramatic way. One such way is in the realm of administrative law, as members of this conservative majority have sought to restrain the powers of federal bureaucratic agencies, as in the 2022 case of West Virginia vs. EPA. Similar future decisions could profoundly affect federal policy implementation and law enforcement, possibly shifting powers to state and local governments. 

In this panel discussion, we examine current decision-making on the U.S. Supreme Court, how it has affected policymaking dynamics in the U.S. and what the policy consequences of similar decisions may be in the future. 

Meet The Speakers

Ilaria Di Gioia is Senior Lecturer in American Law and Associate Director of the Centre for American Legal Studies at Birmingham City School of Law. Her research focuses on questions of law and policy within the U.S. federalist structure. She is the editor of the British Journal of American Legal Studies, as well as the Inaugural Philip Davies Fellow of the Eccles Centre for American Studies at the British Library. Finally, she also serves as Honorary Vice Consul for Italy in Birmingham, representing the Italian government as well as over 10,000 Italians in the British Midlands.

James Tierney was the attorney general of Maine from 1980 to 1990. He currently is a lecturer at Harvard Law School where he teaches classes on state attorneys general and has directed the attorney general clinic. Before coming to Harvard, Professor Tierney was the Director of the National State Attorneys General Program at Columbia Law School. Since his time as Maine AG, Professor Tierney has also consulted with serving state attorneys general and the National Association of Attorneys General. In this role, he worked with then-AGs in negotiating the tobacco settlement of the 1990s. 
stateag.org

Rachel Augustine Potter is an Associate Professor in the Department of Politics at the University of Virginia. She has published extensively on bureaucratic politics and she published her award-winning book, Bending the Rules: Procedural Politicking in the Bureaucracy, in 2019. Professor Potter also contributes to the Brookings Institution Centre on Regulation and Markets and has served as a consultant to the Administrative Conference of the United States. 

Chaired by: Dr. Colin Provost, UCL Department of Political Science

This event is organised by UCL Department of Political Science and the Centre on US Politics.

This event will be recorded and the video will be uploaded to our YouTube channel.

Can't make it on the day? Register for the event and you will be sent the link to the video as soon as it is available.