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Post by barkley on Mar 2, 2015 21:46:44 GMT -5
Hey all! I am an old timer who was blessed to be picked up as ALJ in the early years of The Reopening. (Can you tell I have been reading too much post apocalyptic fiction lately?). I am aware, though, that OPM in the last year or two totally redid the testing procedures, making it more difficult for Agency people to get past the initial steps, but I have not followed the finer points.
Here is my question. There is a bright, young attorney ("BYA") in my office who is very sharp and would make an excellent ALJ. No question. This person has some outside experience but not alot; in fact, this person has not yet met the 7 year initial cut off for attorney experience. An opening in management has come up. BYA would make a very good manager and is interested in the slot. I personally think that if BYA took the position, and focused on improving my office's writing staff, doing training, reviewing other writer's decisions, writing some harder decisions, an argument could be made that BYA is still doing attorney work. BYA is concerned that OPM will see it differently. BYA would like to in effect become a supervising staff attorney for the office, but not at the expense of losing the opportunity to compete for ALJ.
So, what do you think? Would you advise BYA to remain a senior attorney to ensure he clearly got 7 years in a pure attorney position? Does OPM look kindly on SSA middle managers these days? Will BYA be killing any chance of becoming an ALJ if the management position is pursued?
I appreciate your thoughts.
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Post by luckylady2 on Mar 3, 2015 0:37:20 GMT -5
Here's what the announcement for the last application (closed March 2013) had to say about experience that counted toward the 7 years:
When filling out that section of the application, the applicant was asked to delineate for each job the amount of time in qualifying activities and the amount in non-qualifying experience.
So there is some concern about going from a position that is heavy in qualifying experience to one where the qualifying experience is little and sporadic. FWIW, it seems to me that one could still gain enough qualifying experience in the latter, but it would take quite a few more years to get the equivalent of 7 years of, essentially, actual litigating/dispute resolution experience.
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Post by prescient on Mar 3, 2015 9:44:33 GMT -5
Hey all! I am an old timer who was blessed to be picked up as ALJ in the early years of The Reopening. (Can you tell I have been reading too much post apocalyptic fiction lately?). I am aware, though, that OPM in the last year or two totally redid the testing procedures, making it more difficult for Agency people to get past the initial steps, but I have not followed the finer points. Here is my question. There is a bright, young attorney ("BYA") in my office who is very sharp and would make an excellent ALJ. No question. This person has some outside experience but not alot; in fact, this person has not yet met the 7 year initial cut off for attorney experience. An opening in management has come up. BYA would make a very good manager and is interested in the slot. I personally think that if BYA took the position, and focused on improving my office's writing staff, doing training, reviewing other writer's decisions, writing some harder decisions, an argument could be made that BYA is still doing attorney work. BYA is concerned that OPM will see it differently. BYA would like to in effect become a supervising staff attorney for the office, but not at the expense of losing the opportunity to compete for ALJ. So, what do you think? Would you advise BYA to remain a senior attorney to ensure he clearly got 7 years in a pure attorney position? Does OPM look kindly on SSA middle managers these days? Will BYA be killing any chance of becoming an ALJ if the management position is pursued? I appreciate your thoughts. I think SSA would love BYA. OPM? not so much. Unless the pendulum were to massively swing next time the register opens, and by swing I mean, recalibration of most steps in the application, I would say BYA has little chance of making it through the guantlet as a GS. So few insiders made it this time, and of those who did, most had either extensive outside experience and/or vet points. |
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Post by sealaw90 on Mar 3, 2015 10:09:28 GMT -5
FWIW, I think BYA is killing her chances of qualifying experience by jumping into management so soon. However, not everyone can or should be an ALJ, even if they would be great at it. If they have strengths in leadership and management and could really improved the organization in a management capacity, that's not a bad thing.
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Post by Missundaztood on Mar 3, 2015 10:16:31 GMT -5
barkley, I think it is really great that you care about and are taking an interest in BYA's future. It is awesome when any young attorney finds a mentor who cares about his/her future. Best wishes for you and BYA. 
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Post by saaao on Mar 3, 2015 10:43:36 GMT -5
If BYA is seriously interested in being an ALJ, the best thing to do as an Agency attorney is to participate in the Adjudication details the Senior Attorneys are doing. If I were advising BYA I would not recommend moving into management until BYA had attained at least 10 years for purely legal experience. I would also encourage BYA to work in adjudication rather than writing any time the opportunity presented itself, though I hear that is harder to do these days than it was in the past. Finally I would warn BYA that the odds of just getting through the exam are pretty long no matter what your background is. I have become more concerned about ODAR selections of late, but I vaguely remember from a pool of 6000 original applicants, attrition across the three phases cut the number down to about 700-900 that actually made the register.
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Post by privateatty on Mar 3, 2015 16:47:04 GMT -5
What does BYA want more? To be an ALJ or to ensure a larger (than now) paycheck and get managerial experience? I agree with prescient--and would take it one step further. If I were BYA I would go into private practice and do some Art. III litigation. There is nothing like doing a jury trial by one's self. Lose/win your client's money or freedom.
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