Nicholas R. Parrillo is Townsend Professor of Law at Yale, with a secondary appointment as Professor of History. His research and teaching focus on administrative law and government bureaucracy and extend to legal history, remedies, and legislation. He has won the ABA’s award1 for the year’s best scholarship in administrative law and the Law and Society Association’s Hurst Prize for the year’s best book in legal history2.
Parrillo’s articles include a study3 finding new originalist evidence for the constitutionality of administrative regulatory power, published in the Yale Law Journal and discussed by the en banc Fifth Circuit4 and the U.S. Solicitor General5; a study6 of how the judiciary handles the federal government’s disobedience to court orders, published in the Harvard Law Review and discussed in the7Washington8Post9, Wall Street Journal10, and New York11Times12; and a study13 that provided the empirical basis for best practices14 adopted by the Administrative Conference of the United States (ACUS) on the federal government’s ubiquitous but controversial use of guidance documents. Peer scholars at Jotwell, in selecting the “best new scholarship15” in law, selected each of these16three17studies18 (one of them twice19).
Parrillo has testified20 before Congress, been quoted21 by the U.S. Supreme Court, is a senior fellow22 of ACUS, and has been an instructor23 at the New York Historical Society’s graduate institute and an invited speaker before the Second Circuit Judicial Conference, the U.S. Department of Justice (in 201924 and again in 2024), the ACLU national legal staff, and the Federalist Society’s national convention (two25times26). He is a recipient of Yale Law School’s annual teaching award27.
For our bicentennial, faculty members reflect on how Yale Law School’s approach to teaching sets the school apart, offering a highly individualized experience for students.
Nicholas R. Parrillo ’04 gave his first lecture as the William K. Townsend Professor of Law on whether administrative regulatory power is constitutional.
In September, 14 early-career legal scholars and 13 senior commenters gathered for the annual Administrative Law New Scholarship Roundtable, this year hosted by the Law School.
A paper by William K. Townsend Professor of Law Professor of Law Nicholas R. Parrillo on an early exercise of federal administrative power is summarized.
Discussed in Consumers’ Research v. FCC4, 109 F.4th 743, 780-82 (5th Cir. 2024) (en banc), certiorari granted, 2024 WL 4864037 (Nov. 22, 2024); also discussed in the U.S. Solicitor General’s merits brief5
Selected for review in Jotwell18 (Administrative Law)
Related research findings appear in a supplemental paper40 to this article
Quoted21 by the U.S. Supreme Court in Sackett v. EPA, 598 U.S. 661, 667 (2023)
Cited in Kaiser v. Johnson & Johnson, 947 F.3d 996, 1003 (7th Cir. 2020); FTC v. Credit Bureau Center, LLC, 937 F.3d 764, 771, 774 (7th Cir. 2019)
Selected for two17reviews19 in Jotwell (Administrative Law)
Served as the focal point for an online symposium45 about guidance
“Fiduciary Government and Public Officers’ Incentives,” in Fiduciary Government46, ed. Evan J. Criddle et al. (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2018), 146-160.
Received Cromwell Article Prize (American Society for Legal History) for the year’s best article on American legal history by an early-career scholar.
“Testing Weber: Compensation for Public Services, Bureaucratization, and the Development of Positive Law in the United States,” in Comparative Administrative Law70, ed. Susan Rose- Ackerman and Peter L. Lindseth (Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 2010).
“Lincoln’s Calvinist Transformation: Emancipation and War,” Civil War History 46 (2000): 227- 253. Republished in On Lincoln73, ed. John T. Hubbell (Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 2014), volume 3 of Civil War History Readers (“a multivolume series reintroducing the most influential articles published in the journal”).
Administrative Law from the Inside Out: Essays on Themes in the Work of Jerry Mashaw, ed. Nicholas R. Parrillo (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2017).
Congressional Testimony
Written Testimony75 Before the United States House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, “Shining Light on the Federal Regulatory Process,” March 14, 2018 (Video of hearing76: Parrillo opening statement at 36:45.)
“Remarks Accepting the Section’s 2014 Annual Scholarship Award for Against the Profit Motive,” Administrative & Regulatory Law News, 40, no. 2 (Winter 2015): 7-9.
