Administrative Conference of the United States

The Administrative Conference of the United States (ACUS) was an independent federal advisory agency established by Congress in 1968 to help improve federal administrative processes. It became one of the strongest advocates for the increased use of alternative dispute resolution (ADR) at the federal level; however, it was eliminated by Congress in 1995, when the 1990 Administrative Dispute Resolution Act expired. In 1996, however, Congress passed a new Administrative Dispute Resolution Act, which permanently established and extended the provisions of the earlier act. It also called on the president to designate an agency or create an interagency committee to carry out the work that had formerly been done by the ACUS. Thus the ACUS's functions, if not its structure, will continue.

In 1990, the ACUS called for every federal department and agency that had significant interaction with the public to establish an ombudsman's office. According to Commissioner Marshall Berger, "Experience shows that it [an ombudsman] can increase cooperation with government and reduce occasions for litigation. Equally important, the ombudsman can provide high-ranking decision makers with the information needed to identify and treat systemic problems before they get out of hand" (Brown 1993, 171).
The ACUS was also a key player in obtaining passage of the Administrative Dispute Resolution Act of 1990. This act required every federal agency to consider the use of ADR processes whenever possible to resolve disputes that might otherwise be litigated. The act also required agencies to train their personnel in negotiation techniques and to appoint several senior officials in each agency to act as dispute resolution specialists. The ACUS was given a specific role in training federal officials to implement the act and was to report to Congress periodically on the agencies' success in implementing ADR procedures. The ACUS was also instrumental in the passage of the 1990 Negotiated Rulemaking Act, which encouraged federal agencies to use negotiated rule-making or regulatory negotiation (reg-neg) whenever possible in their rulemaking procedures.

References and Further Reading: Administrative Conference of the United States, 1986, Agencies' Use of Alternative Means of Dispute Resolution; Administrative Conference of the United States, 1992, Recommendations and Reports, vol. 1; Brown, Brack, 1993, "Public Organizations and Policies in Conflict: Notes on Theory and Practice"; Dauer, Edward A., 1994, Manual of Dispute Resolution.