Michael Sant'Ambrogio
Dean and Red Cedar Distinguished Professor of Law | Michigan State University
East Lansing, MI, UNITED STATES
Michael Sant'Ambrogio's scholarship focuses on institutions that facilitate public participation in the federal regulatory process.
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Biography
Michael Sant’Ambrogio was appointed Dean of the College of Law and Red Cedar Distinguished Professor on October 25, 2024, after having served for ten months as Interim Dean. Dean Sant’Ambrogio has been on the faculty of the College of Law since 2011 and previously served as Senior Associate Dean for Faculty and Academic Affairs and as Associate Dean for Research.
Dean Sant’Ambrogio is committed to student success. Under his leadership, the College has created small 1-L sections with early individualized assessments and greater student-teacher interactions. Additionally, the College of Law expanded its experiential learning opportunities. A first-of-its kind new Public Defender Clinic will serve clients across Michigan. He also recruited a new assistant dean of admissions and secured additional resources to enhance academic success and bar preparation programs.
In his previous role as Senior Associate Dean, Sant’Ambrogio led the law college’s American Bar Association’s (ABA) successful re-accreditation process in 2022. He guided efforts to diversify the ranks of the law college’s adjunct faculty, helped increase the curricular offerings on the cutting edge of technology and the law, and introduced more effective bar exam preparation programs for students.
Prior to that, Dean Sant’Ambrogio served five years as Associate Dean for Research at the College of Law, reviving the Faculty Workshop Series and increasing institutional support for junior faculty.
Since joining MSU College of Law as a Professor in 2011, Dean Sant’Ambrogio continued his passion for teaching and writing in the areas of Administrative and Regulatory Law, Civil Procedure, Federal Courts, and Constitutional Law.
His recent scholarship focuses on the institutional structures, practices, and procedures facilitating public participation in the federal regulatory process. His scholarship has been published in numerous national law reviews, including Columbia Law Review, The Georgetown Law Journal, Iowa Law Review, The George Washington Law Review, Vanderbilt Law Review, Washington University Law Review, William & Mary Law Review, and Yale Law Journal.
Areas of Expertise (3)
Administrative Rule Making
Regulations
Federal Agencies
Education (3)
New York University School of Law: J.D. 2001
New York University: M.A., American History 1998
Columbia University: B.A., History 1992
Links (1)
News (3)
Michael Sant’Ambrogio is the new dean of MSU College of Law
WKAR Public Media online
2024-10-25
The new dean talks about his and the college’s teaching and scholarship strengths. He tells why he wants to be dean of the college. And he shares goals for the college and discusses challenges and opportunities ahead.
MSU College of Law Student Bar Association, Black Law Students Association condemn racism after classroom incident
The State News online
2024-02-19
Michael Sant'Ambrogio, interim dean of the College of Law, issued a statement in response to BLSA's statement. "The College of Law was deeply saddened by the incident on January 11 and the hurt it caused," Sant'Ambrogio said in the statement.
The Courts Are Probably Going to Kill Biden’s Student Loan Forgiveness Plan
Time Magazine online
2022-11-16
“It’s entirely possible that judges that are kind of skeptical of executive action or administrative action would strike it down and enjoin it,” says Michael Sant’Ambrogio, a law professor at Michigan State University, who studies administrative law, federal courts and constitutional law. “That’s a very real risk at the moment.”
Event Appearances (3)
Operation: Public Engagement
December 2023 | ABA Administrative Law Conference
ABA Site Visits and Crisis Management
July 2023 | ABA Associate Deans Conference
Improving Public Engagement in Agency Rulemaking
December 2022 | ABA Administrative Law Conference
Journal Articles (3)
Democratizing Rule Development
Washington University Law Review2021 Agencies make many of their most important decisions in rulemaking well before the publication of a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM), when they set their regulatory agendas and develop proposals for public comment. Agencies’ need for information from outside parties and openness to alternative courses of action are also generally at their greatest during these earlier stages of the rulemaking process. Yet regulatory agenda setting and rule development have received virtually no scholarly attention. The literature generally treats what happens before publication of the NPRM as a “black box” and suggests that agenda setting and rule development are primarily influenced by political considerations and pressure from well-organized groups.
Presidential Maladministration
Ohio Northern University Law Review2020 Following her service in the Clinton administration, then-Professor Elena Kagan wrote, "[w]e live today in an era of presidential administration."' Kagan argued that while Congress, the bureaucracy, and interest groups all continued to influence federal regulatory policy, the president had assumed a position of comparative primacy vis-A-vis these other actors. Although some were troubled by strong presidential control over the discretion delegated to federal agencies by Congress, Kagan maintained that the tools used by President Clinton to influence federal agencies would enhance the political accountability and effectiveness of regulatory policy.
Private Enforcement in Administrative Courts
Vanderbilt Law Review2019 Scholars debating the relative merits of public and private enforcement have long trained their attention on the federal courts. For some, laws giving private litigants rights to vindicate important policies generate unaccountable “private attorneys general” who interfere with public enforcement goals. For others, private lawsuits save cash-strapped government lawyers money, time, and resources by encouraging private parties to police misconduct on their own. Yet largely overlooked in the debate is enforcement inside agency adjudication, which often is depicted as just another form of public enforcement, only in a friendlier forum.
