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Our understanding of the dynamics of judicial lobbying and the strategy of the participants in that activity is limited to research that examines the role played by judges, in an individual or occasional collective effort. The significance of this study lies in its unique focus on the Administrative Office of the United States Courts (AO) as a strategic judicial actor in contemporary lobbying before Congress. No research to date systematically treats the liaison role played by this support unit of the Judicial Conference in particular and the federal courts in general. The research draws from previously untapped AO correspondence files, private paper collections, and personal interviews with key personnel, sources that provide fresh insights into the dynamics of judicial lobbying. This study focuses on the five contemporary initiatives adopted by the AO and pursued by its legislative affairs office. It looks in some depth at the issue of courthouse construction because it bears directly on the internal management of the federal courts, uniquely involves both the legislative and executive branches of the national government, and in many ways was the centerpiece of the Conference and AO legislative agenda in the 1990s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]