Publication Date
12-31-2025
Abstract
The Supreme Court definitively overruled Chevron U.S.A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc. in the landmark decision of Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, marking the most consequential transformation of administrative law in four decades. Prior to Loper Bright, Chevron’s deferential two-step framework provided the standard by which courts interpreted statutes administered by federal agencies. Loper Bright abrogates Chevron’s familiar standard, holding that courts should no longer defer to an agency’s interpretation of its enabling statute whenever the statute is deemed ambiguous. This shift in precedent potentially opens the floodgates for challenges to agency action based on tenuous interpretations of agencies’ enabling statutes.
This Note argues that advocates defending and challenging agency action will have to shift their argumentation style to adapt to the changing landscape of administrative law jurisprudence. This Note examines how the collapse of Chevron has begun to reshape the craft of lawyering, first illustrating how Chevron’s two-step test functioned as an organizing principle for advocates, and then analyzing emerging trends in post-Loper Bright briefing, identifying how advocates are navigating the decision’s newly articulated interpretive directives and uncertainties they introduce. Ultimately, this Note contends that the shift from Chevron to Loper Bright not only transforms litigation strategy but also reinvigorates longstanding constitutional debates over the delegation of congressional power and the separation of powers.
Recommended Citation
Kiser, Russell
(2025)
"Lawyering in the Wake of Loper Bright: How Loper Bright Is Shifting Advocates' Argumentation Style,"
Georgia Law Review: Vol. 60:
No.
1, Article 6.
Available at:
https://digitalcommons.law.uga.edu/glr/vol60/iss1/6