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Post by mercury on Oct 2, 2015 11:59:17 GMT -5
What is the current status of the SA program? I've heard it was suspended for new hires but I've also heard of new ones moving to HOs, but maybe they were already senior attorneys. No one in my office seems to know anything.
Does anyone have a link to the official position description? I've seen it before but can't find a link. It seems like a good way to get experience towards ALJ.
Would appreciate if Judge Ratty or anyone else with personal knowledge can chime in here.
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Post by christina on Oct 2, 2015 12:14:28 GMT -5
i don't believe we are hiring Senior Attorneys at this time. i don't have a link here for job description but may be able to get it by Monday. Do you work for agency already? Currently, the last i knew, there were only around 20 Senior Attorneys who could issue decisions.
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Post by JudgeRatty on Oct 2, 2015 12:34:51 GMT -5
Several points here: 1. ODAR does not hire Senior Attorneys from the outside. You have to be in a GS 12 position in ODAR and then apply for the GS 13 when and IF there are any openings. There have not been openings in a while.
2. The Senior Attorney program is vastly different now and only those who are in the National Adjudication Team (NAT) can use adjudicator authority to issue favorable decisions. And they are closely monitored.
3. Just being an attorney at ODAR is a plus IF (as Pixie and others have said) you are a good employee I.e. Don't get into trouble and do your job well. Being an insider can be a bad thing if you make waves or do not do your job well. Out of the 45 people in my class, 9 were insiders and of those 4 were attorney advisors, 4 senior attorneys, and 1 from the appeals council.
So you will not see SAA jobs advertised to the public only from within.
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Post by JudgeRatty on Oct 2, 2015 12:37:19 GMT -5
And the NAT is a highly competitive detail for which you have to apply when it is offered. This is what Christina references with the 20 or so.
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Post by mercury on Oct 2, 2015 13:08:21 GMT -5
I'm currently an AA figuring out my career path with the goal of becoming an ALJ. Shortly after I started last year, a non-adjudicatory GS-13 whom I didn't get to meet transferred to a HO in the Midwest and her title is now "Senior Attorney-Adjudicator." She does not work for the NAT, so I've been hearing conflicting things. I will see if someone in my office can offer an e-introduction to ask her about it.
JudgeRatty, you mentioned 1 from the AC? Was he/she not an AA? AO?
What do senior attorneys not at the NAT do?
Thanks for all of your responses so far. I am looking for the official position description, with amendments, if that helps.
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Post by christina on Oct 2, 2015 13:21:12 GMT -5
She might work for the NAT. NAT folks on are temporary assignments from I believe the midwest NCAC now but most or all people on the NAT physically work out of their own office and get cyber assignments from the NAT. Senior Attorneys not part of NAC do whatever their management team assigns to them.
As far as i know, agency is not hiring any new SAA's at this time and i am not aware of any plans to reopen Senior attorney adjudication to more attorneys in the short term future. As long as there are only 20 SAA's adjudicating cases, i think it is very very unlikely the agency will promote any more AA to SAA spots.
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Post by christina on Oct 2, 2015 14:19:42 GMT -5
last SAA hires i know of occurred in 2011. there may have been some past then but not many, if any.
SAA program was alive and well 5 to 6 years ago.
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Post by redsox1 on Oct 2, 2015 15:46:37 GMT -5
I was one of the last Sr Atty hires. But never issued a FF because the program was on its last legs. My understanding is that there is a push to have prehearing conferences which might justify more SAA's but I would not count on it. In my class, we had some former AAs so I don't think not getting SAA will knock you out of the running from The Agency point of view. Not to be a downer but I suspect that if a candidate only has SSA/DW that person will have a tough time making the Register under the current rules. I did not meet anyone with that profile in training. if you have SSA/OGC I suspect that helps a lot as OGC seems to be well represented in the ALJ Corps.
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Post by christina on Oct 2, 2015 16:04:01 GMT -5
Not insane because of 5 point vet pref. pixie can likely offer most insights on this. i like your avatar BTW
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Post by phoenixrakkasan on Oct 2, 2015 16:16:13 GMT -5
I'm also a fairly new writer. I was told roughly 5-6 years ago when SAA program was alive and well a lot of people were promoted to SAA. Now that its basically dead with the exception of the NAT SAA are basically decision writers and there are hundreds of them throughout the country. Group Soups generally assign them the more difficult cases in theory sometimes they will do pre-hearing reviews for judges. By all accounts, the agency has not hired SAA in a few years and with the death of the program we shouldn't expect hiring anytime soon. They're basically decision writers they just have that senior title because once you get your 13 the agency can't take it from you. I was told that if you are an AA in the field the foreseeable path to 13 is group soup. Ratty IM curious if those 4 AA had extensive experience outside SSA before working for the agency if you know. Fortune favors the bold. Continue to seek challenging positions.
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Post by redryder on Oct 2, 2015 16:34:20 GMT -5
Lonely writer: If you can find the last OPM/USAjobs vacancy announcement for the ALJ position, it will tell you what is the qualifying experience for the job. If I remember correctly, writing decisions in ODAR did not qualify as legal experience. I don't know about the staff make-up in your office, but in many offices there are paralegals with the same grade at the attorneys doing the same job. Hence the lack of recognition for the work as qualifying experience.
When the testing was changed in 2007, one could use administrative experience to help meet the threshold qualifying experience for the job. But even then a goodly portion of us who were selected had some outside experience and management experience in ODAR.
Perhaps an insider who went through the latest round can comment on the weight given for writing ODAR decisions in the current assessment.
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Post by gary on Oct 2, 2015 16:42:55 GMT -5
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Post by mamaru on Oct 2, 2015 16:45:04 GMT -5
Are we allowed to discuss that since it was part of the second phase of the test?
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Post by JudgeRatty on Oct 2, 2015 17:04:51 GMT -5
I'm also a fairly new writer. I was told roughly 5-6 years ago when SAA program was alive and well a lot of people were promoted to SAA. Now that its basically dead with the exception of the NAT SAA are basically decision writers and there are hundreds of them throughout the country. Group Soups generally assign them the more difficult cases in theory sometimes they will do pre-hearing reviews for judges. By all accounts, the agency has not hired SAA in a few years and with the death of the program we shouldn't expect hiring anytime soon. They're basically decision writers they just have that senior title because once you get your 13 the agency can't take it from you. I was told that if you are an AA in the field the foreseeable path to 13 is group soup. Ratty IM curious if those 4 AA had extensive experience outside SSA before working for the agency if you know. I don't remember meeting anyone who had "only" ODAR experience. I was impressed by everyone's credentials. There were individuals in my class with judge experience, and a variety of extensive trial experience as well as elected officials. I was amazed at the extensive resumes of all those hired. This is why I repeatedly say that if you are on the register and have not been chosen yet, it is NOT a reflection of you as much as it is that there was someone with one more thing than you had... the credentials of everyone I had in my class was incredible. I was greatly honored to be among them. I cannot impress upon everyone enough that this is the case. The qualifying experience is one threshold, but there are SO many amazing candidates who have been chosen, it raises the bar quite a bit. Everyone I met had at least some litigation experience, and most had a great deal of litigation experience.
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Post by saaao on Oct 2, 2015 17:20:39 GMT -5
Redsox if you could elaborate on those rules I'd be delighted. I need hope. We have 1 new judge in my office who was a writer but I don't know his experience before that. I'm assuming you mean a writer would have a lack of litigation experience that opm looks for. I've heard of people attempting to do pro bono stuff on the weekends or take occasional leave to get lit experience like guardian ad litem or family law work. I'm holding out hope as a writer straight from law school with 5 point vet pref. Am I insane? Would it help to leave the agency to become a rep? It's not insane, but what you are talking about is leaving a steady job for the uncertainty of private practice in a practice area that is not paying all that well right now (check out the howling on Charles Hall's blog) and may be well going the way that Workers Comp went in many states (which went from a lucrative practice area to WC specialist changing practice areas to avoid bankruptcy). You would be doing this so that whenever the exam opens again you will have a shot to take the exam, then hope you make the register, hope you make the register with a high enough score to get an interview, and then hope you get picked up after the interview. Being an insider is not a guarantee. I am aware of GS-14 and GS-15 level SSA attorneys (OGC and AC types), with very solid reps, including 10 point vets, who have so far been passed over. I tend to think that they Agency is going to be coming back for them, but there is certainly no guarantee that is the case. If you want to leave your job anyway, then go for it. But if you are leaving just for the shot at the ALJ lottery, I would really take a long deep breath, because you are looking at long odds.
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Post by ALJD on Oct 2, 2015 17:25:35 GMT -5
Perhaps an insider who went through the latest round can comment on the weight given for writing ODAR decisions in the current assessment. Candidates who went through the process would have no idea how OPM weights ODAR experience as there is only one final score for everything, no breakdown of individual parts. So all you're likely to get are speculations based on individual circumstances, which is not likely to be helpful. Now if anyone actually leaks something that might be covered by the confidentiality agreement, please report it and we'll review and moderate it as appropriate. Thanks.
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Post by christina on Oct 2, 2015 18:18:33 GMT -5
Becoming an SAA was a viable option 5 to 6 years ago. So i can see why your HOD brought it up at interviews. The bulk of adjudication responsibility abruptly ended in late 2013. i don't know if anyone saw that coming back in 2019/2010.
i agree with you that the decision writing portion of our jobs at ODAR qualifies as legal experience. i am pretty certain this is straight from the application so no confidentiality violations reinforcing that point. it does not hurt to get more experience elsewhere. do you any interest in moving to a city where there are more federal jobs and career ladders available?
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Post by mattis on Oct 2, 2015 23:25:22 GMT -5
If y are lucky enough to work in an ODAR office that actually understands the valuable contributions a SA can make, if given the opportunity to do so, versus being just another writer, your CV will be greatly enhanced, when competing for the ALJ position. SAs come ready made, in general, for the ALJ position and can hit the ground running for that 500-700 numeric of case closures, per year.
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Post by maquereau on Oct 3, 2015 9:06:40 GMT -5
The ODAR locations that know how to use the skills of SAs are, in my experience, relatively scarce. Of course this situation has also been exacerbated by upper management at SSA in limiting SA adjudication. The SA ought to have duties setting himself or herself apart from the other writers; already the distinction between paralegal and attorney decision writers has been blurred to such extent that I cannot really separate their functions. At some offices, management will say that paralegals should not be writing remanded cases, but that's the only difference of which I've been made aware. I believe I started as an attorney advisor grade 11. I was fortunate in that I made fairly rapid progress through the ranks. However, unless one can move to a 13 or higher, there is little or no advantage to the attorney position versus the paralegal position. In fact, given the requirements of keeping up a law license (though the reason for that has never been adequately explained to me), the position is actually inferior to paralegal work. And I really should have been placing "paralegal" in quotation marks - the vast majority of them are no more paralegals than I am a brain surgeon.
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Post by mercury on Oct 3, 2015 15:57:33 GMT -5
Thanks for all your feedback. It is too bad that the program seems to be curtailed, but perhaps they will expand it in the future.
Otherwise, I suppose the best path to gain experience would be in the regional offices? Any insight on that? Is that all OGC?
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