General statutory measures that purport to deal with "administrative law" define the scope of their application in terms of three concerns: the procedures employed by "agencies" in effecting "agency action"; judicial (and, to a lesser extent, political) review of those actions; and special procedures relating to the handling and release of information in the government's possession. Neither a court nor a legislature nor an elected chief executive can be an "agency" under these statutes, although the relationship of courts, legislatures and chief executives with agencies is very much a matter of administrative law concern. Otherwise the concept includes virtually every administrative unit exercising public authority. "Agency action" is also embracively defined. While the provisions of administrative procedure legislation generally deal with the relatively formal procedures of adjudication and rulemaking, as discussed below, federal "agency action" includes any grant, denial, or failure to act upon "the application or petition of, and beneficial to, a person"; under the most recent draft of model state administrative procedure legislation, "agency action" includes "an agency's performance of, or failure to perform, any ... duty, function, or activity, discretionary or otherwise." Again, the category is virtually as broad as the field of public administration; only traditional criminal law proceedings, traditional civil litigation, and political acts in the strict sense, those indisputably beyond the control of law, are excluded.

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