Reading the Federal Register
Regulatory change as practice — read a rule, trace it to its statute, and judge what it's worth now.
Faculty · Andrew Leahey
Most lawyers can read a case. Fewer can pick up a federal regulation, figure out where in its life it currently sits, trace it to the statute that supposedly authorizes it, and judge what that rule is worth right now — to a court that, after Loper Bright, no longer takes the agency's word for it.
In one hour, Andrew Leahey — tax attorney, Bloomberg Tax columnist, and legal-technology builder — teaches the skill: the notice-and-comment spine of § 553, the difference between the Register and the Code, the most under-read document in the field (the preamble), and the rule-to-statute move that is now load-bearing. He hands you three cases that decide what a rule is worth after 2024 — plus the Corner Post sleeper that reopens old rules to challenge — and a concrete monitoring workflow. Along the way he shares original research on how proposed rules actually change on the way to final.
Recorded, on-demand New Jersey CLE. Built as general credit and useful in any regulated practice.
How you’ll study it
Built for working lawyers, not passive viewers. Every program includes:
Counsel’s Notebook
Capture any passage as you watch — the exact words, the moment in the record, and the authority on point — add your own annotations, and export a Word-ready research memo.
The Reader’s Cut
Read along in a clean, synced transcript that follows the audio, chapter by chapter. Click any line to return to that moment on the video.
Smart Session Docket
Tell it how much time you have and it finds the natural stopping point that fits — study in the gaps between calls, never mid-thought.
Source Mode
Every authority the program relies on, surfaced the instant it’s cited and gathered into a downloadable bibliography.
Trust dossier
Receipts for the promise.
Current through: July 23, 2026. The date describes the law reviewed for this edition, not merely the day the video was uploaded.
The faculty
Andrew Leahey is a New Jersey-admitted tax and technology attorney, Bloomberg Tax columnist, and legal-technology builder. The courses are taught from working practice, not read from a generic vendor outline.
Editorial rigor
Each script is checked against primary authority, put through a separate citation pass, recorded, transcribed, and checked again for anything the spoken version introduced or changed.
Source Mode
Authorities appear at the moment they matter, with the full citation and official source where available. Every enrollee can export a dated sources-and-authorities record.
Real participation
Playback is time-verified and punctuated by position-bound participation or comprehension checks. A login timestamp by itself never earns completion.
Materials worth keeping
Every published course includes downloadable written materials built as a working aid: verification checklists, timelines, source maps, and practical artifacts rather than a slide dump.
Corrections in the open
Send a suspected error to andrew@leahey.org. Substantive corrections are verified against the source, reflected in the maintained edition, and accompanied by a new current-through date; historical completion evidence is never rewritten.
Accreditation & credit
Provider: Minimum Competence CLE · Recorded, on-demand (an alternative verifiable learning format) · 50minutes of instruction. Credit is calculated from instructional minutes at each state’s credit-hour length.
- NJ
- 1.0 general(50-min hour)
- Application pending
- NY
- 1.0 total potentially claimable(50-min hour)
- Unavailable until active NJ approval
- PA
- Below Pennsylvania’s 60-minute course minimum(60-min hour)
- Separate PA approval required
New Jersey accreditation is not yet active; credit figures are estimates and final category allocation is set by the Board.
New Jersey: recorded/on-demand credit is capped at 12 of the 24 credits per two-year cycle.
Certificates issue only on verified completion. Completion records are retained for at least four years.