In its thirty years, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration has endured a notorious reputation for having complicated, lengthy, and litigious rulemaking. Other social regulatory agencies share some of the symptoms, but OSHA's troubles are pervasive: of the health standards promulgated since 1972, all but a handful have been met with lawsuits challenging the agency's decisions. Safety standards have fared better, but approximately half still have faced court review. Rulemaking is long, laborious, and sharply contested, and even then, some have argued, the rules are less than ideal. What or who is to blame? Among the suspects are: highly contentious labor–management relations, appellate courts, the structure of administrative law, American litigiousness, the OSH Act, and the uncertain science of health and safety. Others blame the lawyers.

What is the significance of lawyers to rulemaking? The answer is shrouded in the mythology of the Washington lawyer, who walks through the revolving door of government agencies to capture the ear of former colleagues. Attorneys have not monopolized OSHA rulemaking, at least not numerically. Quite the contrary, health and safety rules often develop for many years without attorneys present as advocates for interested parties. Although Washington political folklore points a finger of suspicion at regulatory lawyers, some research finds a surprisingly low number of lawyers in policy networks. The modern attorney, however prominent in courtroom advocacy, no longer serves as a “generalist” problem-solver and rarely ventures into other fora.