In the last decade, the use of soil nailing in the United States has increased significantly as a method to construct retaining structures in cut applications (top-down construction). Under favorable soil conditions, soil nail walls present advantages over traditional retaining structures in slope cuts and excavations including lower construction costs and design redundancy. Soil nail walls have been commonly constructed as temporary structures; however, the use of soil nail walls as permanent structures has increased considerably for highway and other applications. The current direction for soil nail design is moving toward a load and resistance factor specification. To be more than just a restatement of current practice, the calibration of new LRFD norms needs to be soundly based on statistical reliability analysis.