§ 5.109 Standard operating procedures.

All legal offices that participate in or render advice in connection with enforcement actions should, to the extent practicable, operate under standard operating procedures. Such offices include, but are not limited to, those that oversee investigatory matters and serve as adversarial personnel in the agency's enforcement matters. These standard operating procedures, which can be contained in manuals, can be used to outline step-by-step requirements for attorney actions in the investigative stage and the prosecution stage; the role of an attorney as counselor, adjudicator, or litigator; the rulemaking process; and the process for issuance of guidance documents, letters of interpretation, preemption decisions, legislative guidance, contract administration, and a variety of other legal functions performed in the legal office. Each DOT OA and each OST component that conducts administrative inspections shall operate under those procedures governing such inspections and shall adopt such administrative inspection procedures if they do not exist. Those procedures shall be updated in a timely manner as needed.