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William A. Price edited the Handbook of Illinois Administrative Law (2nd ed.)

for the Illinois State Bar Association (ISBA). He serves as an assistant newsletter editor for the ISBA Section of Administrative Law and is a past Chair of that committee.

His cases have included successful administrative law hearings and tax appeals before Illinois agencies; Illinois circuit, appellate, and Supreme Courts; and the United States Supreme Court.

Illinois Agency Procedural Rules

Agency rules of practice, like the rules of court, often determine who wins and loses in administrative proceedings. These rules get rewritten from time to time. If your a case involves an Illinois state agency, you need an attorney like Bill Price,  familiar with both the applicable legislation and the Administrative Code ... and with the appropriate state agency's staff ... who can help you negotiate the procedural rules, forms, and other processes relevant to your determination.

Interpreting the Rules

The following example of statutory interpretation was given to a church client recently. The client wanted to know if its Sunday nursery was permitted under local day-care zoning rules. A lot of negatives needed to be checked to determine a positive rule:

"1. Reference to the City of Warrenville published website August 8, 2007: zoning map and ordinance indicates the proposed use is permitted on the site.

2. The zoning map shows the parcel as R-2 (single family low density residential).

3. "Churches and religious institutions" is a permitted use in R-1, so therefore also in R-2 by the general language of the zoning ordinance:

"Except as specifically provided otherwise herein, within the categories of Residential, Business, Office, and Manufacturing Districts, uses shall be allowed as Permitted or Special Uses in any district if they are allowed as Permitted Uses or Special Uses, respectively, in any lower numbered district within the same category."

4. "Day Care Centers, Child" would be permitted only in B2 and O1 districts, or higher numbered business and office districts, but that would apply only if the church were renting to and conducting a
 legally separate business that did day care. Child care incidental to a bona fide religious program would not appear to be a separate use, any more than "dog training", which may or may not occur as members walk a dog across the church property, happens as a separate business use (allowed in m1, O1 and higher).

5. The "Definitions" section of the ordinance, in fact, makes the exclusion of church-run day care from the separate "Day Care Centers, Child" definition. There is no definition of "church." The definition for day care centers reads, in pertinent part, as follows:

"DAY CARE CENTER,CHILD: A facility that receives more than 8 children at any one time for daytime care and that provides personal care, protection, supervision, training, and other programs. Child day care centers exclude:

1. kindergartens and other programs run by public or private schools or churches""

The process used here is familiar to tax lawyers, who similarly review the statutes and rules to determine the remaining "white space" -- what is allowed for deductions or exemptions ... for example, finding what corporate reorganizations are not "sales" and so don't trigger capital gains taxes. Our American rule is that you may think, "there oughta be a law!" but unless the regulatory language explicitly prohibits (or permits) an activity, there isn't a law.

In other words, to succeed in administrative hearings and appeals, your lawyer needs to be diligent not only in search of regulations that specifically permit a desired action, but also at seeking out indications that the action has not yet been fenced in, defined, and suppressed by official words.