Study

This course explores the legal and institutional challenges that arise when adjudication systems operate at scale.  In courts, mechanisms such as class actions and multidistrict litigation (MDL) coordinate large numbers of claims for collective management and resolution.  In administrative agencies, high-volume adjudication systems—such as those handling immigration and Social Security claims—rely on standardization, delegation, aggregation, and routinization to manage volume.  These structures depart from familiar images of case-by-case decision-making and raise enduring tradeoffs among fairness, individualized justice, uniformity, and efficiency. 

The seminar traces these dynamics across a range of settings, with particular attention to class actions, multidistrict litigation (MDL), immigration courts, and public benefits adjudication.  Along the way, we will locate mass adjudication within broader constitutional debates—including the limits of judicial review in the “internal” law of agencies; presidential control over agency adjudicators; Article III and due process constraints on aggregation; the concentration of adjudicative power in individual district court judges; and the blurred boundary between judicial and administrative power.  Recurring questions include whether large-scale litigation can be understood as a form of administrative governance, and whether agency adjudication inmass settings can—or should—be made more court-like.

Syllabus: 765-01-Spring2026-syllabus.pdf190.12 KB