Gov & Administrative Law Lawyers and Attorneys

Attorneys in this category deal with government agencies: licensing and permits, rulemaking and comment, agency investigations and enforcement, administrative hearings, professional licence discipline, public contracting and procurement protests, and appeals of agency decisions into court.

Administrative practice has its own procedure. Decisions are made by hearing officers under agency rules, the record is built at the agency level, and courts reviewing the result usually defer to it — which means the case is effectively won or lost before any judge sees it.

Before you hire

• Ask about experience before your specific agency or board. Practice varies more between agencies than between courthouses.
• Exhaust the agency process. Skipping a step usually forfeits the right to judicial review.
• If a professional licence is at stake, treat an informal interview as seriously as a hearing. Statements made there are used later.

Municipal law, health care law and environmental law involve much of the same machinery.