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Federal Register / Vol. 86, No. 13 / Friday, January 22, 2021 / Notices sources may not be publicly available, including internal administrative and personnel manuals, position descriptions, and labor agreements. This is particularly true with respect to certain kinds of policies, such as those relating to compensation and performance incentives.12 Of course, the Administrative Conference recognizes that some of these agency policies and practices may qualify for an exemption under the Freedom of Information Act,13 Privacy Act,14
or other laws and executive-branch policies.
Agency websites are the most helpful location for agencies to make relevant policies and practices publicly available.
Individuals most naturally seek information about administrative policies and practices on agencies websites. Agencies can situate information about their adjudicators in a logical and easily identifiable place on their websites and structure their websites to synthesize policies in plain language and link to information from many different sources.15
This Recommendation encourages agencies to post on their websites clear and readily accessible descriptions of the policies governing the appointment and oversight of ALJs and AJs, and to include links to relevant legal documents. How, exactly, they should do so will of course depend on the specific features of their adjudicative programs and their institutional needs.

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Recommendation 1. Each adjudicative agency should prominently display on its website a short, straightforward description of all generally applicable policies and practices, along with the legal authority, governing the appointment and oversight of Administrative Law Judges ALJs and Administrative Judges AJs, including, as applicable, those that address:
a. Procedures for assessing, selecting, and appointing candidates for adjudicator positions and the legal authority under which such appointments are made;
b. Placement of adjudicators within agencies organizational hierarchies;
c. Compensation structure and performance incentives, such as bonuses, nonmonetary awards, and promotions;
d. Procedures for assigning cases;
e. Assignment, if any, of nonadjudicative duties to adjudicators;
f. Limitations on ex parte communications, including between adjudicators and other agency officials, related to the disposition of individual cases, as well as other policies ensuring a separation of adjudication and enforcement functions;
g. Standards for recusal by and disqualification of adjudicators;
h. Administrative review of adjudicators decisions;
report to the Admin. Conf. of the U.S., https
www.acus.gov/report/final-report-publicavailability-information-about-agency-adjudicators.
12 Id. at 7.
13 5 U.S.C. 552.
14 Id. 552a.
15 Cf. Admin. Conf. of the U.S., Recommendation 20173, Plain Language in Regulatory Drafting, 82
FR 61,728 Dec. 29, 2017.

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i. Supervision of adjudicators by higherlevel officials;
j. Evaluation of adjudicators, including quantitative and qualitative methods for appraising adjudicators performances, such as case-processing goals, if any; and k. Discipline and removal of adjudicators.
Agencies may choose not to provide access to policies covered by a Freedom of Information Act exemption.
2. On the same web page as the information described in Paragraph 1
appears, each adjudicative agency should post links to key legal documents or, when links are not available, citations to such documents. These documents may include a federal statutes, including relevant provisions of the Administrative Procedure Act APA and other laws applicable to ALJs and AJs; b agency-promulgated rules regarding adjudicators, including Office of Personnel Management rules applicable to ALJs; c publicly available agencypromulgated guidance documents relating to adjudicators, including manuals, bench books, and other explanatory materials; d delegations of authority; and e position descriptions. To the extent that some policies concerning adjudicators may be a matter of custom, such as assignment of nonadjudicative duties, each adjudicative agency should consider documenting those policies to make them publicly accessible to the extent practicable.
3. The web page containing the information described in Paragraphs 1 and 2
should present the materials in a clear, logical, and comprehensive fashion. One possible method of presenting this information appears in Appendix A. The appendix gives one example for ALJs and another for AJs.
4. If an agencys mission consists exclusively or almost exclusively of conducting adjudications, the agency should provide a link to the web page containing the information described in Paragraphs 1 and 2
on the agencys homepage. If conducting adjudications is one of an agencys many functions, the agency should provide a link to these materials from a location on the website that is both dedicated to adjudicative materials and logical in terms of a users likelihood of finding the documents in the selected location. One example would be an enforcement or adjudication page or the homepage for the component in which a particular category of adjudicators works.
Citations to agency web pages that currently provide this information in a way that makes it easy for the public to locate, as well as descriptions of how to find those pages on agency websites, appear in Appendix B.
Appendix A
Sample Website Text for Administrative Law Judges About Our Administrative Law Judges Administrative Law Judges ALJs at agency conduct hearings and decide cases under insert name of authorizing act. They are part of the agency component in which ALJs are located, which is directed by title of office head and has offices in cities. Visit link to agency organization chart to see how office relates to other offices at agency.

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Agency is committed to ensuring that all hearings and appeals are conducted in a fair and equitable manner. Parties are entitled to a due process hearing presided over by an impartial, qualified ALJ. ALJs resolve cases involving kinds of cases ALJs hear in a fair, transparent, and accessible manner. Our ALJs are appointed by agency official, and are describe qualifications. ALJs are paid according to the pay scale for ALJs with link to the scale scale set by statute under 5
U.S.C. 5372, subject to annual pay adjustments.
Cases are assigned to ALJs in each geographic office in rotation so far as practicable. The ALJ assigned to your case is responsible for job duties, like taking evidence, hearing objections, issuing decisions. ALJs are required by statute to perform their functions impartially. 5 U.S.C.
556b. To ensure impartiality, they do not take part in investigative or enforcement activities, nor do they report to officials in the agencys investigative or enforcement components. 5 U.S.C. 554d, 3105. The ALJ
assigned to your case may not communicate privately about the facts of your case with other agency officials. More details on agencys rules about communicating with ALJs are available location of agencyspecific ex parte prohibitions.
By law, agency does not reward or discipline ALJs for their decisions. A federal statute provides that agency may remove, or take certain other disciplinary actions, against an ALJ it employs only for good cause established and determined by the Merit Systems Protection Board on the record after opportunity for hearing before the Board. 5
U.S.C. 7521.
The agency has adopted rules of recusal link that allow a participant to request that the ALJ in charge of his or her case be disqualified if the participant believes the ALJ cannot fairly and impartially decide the case.
If you are dissatisfied with an ALJs decision, you can request reconsideration from the ALJ or appeal that decision to agency office/official. Visit link for information on appealing an ALJ decision.
Agency office/official may also review your case on its/his or her own initiative if there is an issue with the ALJs decision.
For Further Information:
Hiring process: link Pay rates: link How cases are assigned to ALJs: link Communicating with ALJs ex parte communications: link Process for addressing allegations that an ALJ has a conflict of interest recusal and disqualification procedures: link How to appeal an ALJ decision: link Case-processing goals: link Process for addressing allegations of ALJ
misconduct: link See also:
Statutory provisions governing ALJs: 5
U.S.C. 554, 557, 3105, 4301, 5372, 7521
OPMs regulations governing ALJs: 5 CFR
930.205930.207, 930.211
MSPBs regulations governing ALJs: 5 CFR
1201.1271201.142
Additional legal provisions governing ALJs
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