Pros & Cons Of The SSA ALJ Position?

[govtatty]

Can anyone tell me some of the pros and cons of the ALJ position (assuming it is with the Social Security Administration)? How does this admin judge position compare to immigration administrative judges and bankruptcy administrative judges for example. Any information would be helpful! - Thanks in advance.

[aljhunter]

I have several friends who are Immigration Judges. An Immigration Judge is a DOJ employee, hired by the Executive Office for Immigration Review. They hold administrative hearings, ruling on the status of immigrants. I am unsure about their appointment/tenure protection. From what my friends say, they are under enormous pressure with little to no support. . . I do not think that their salaries match ALJ salaries, but, I could be wrong. I learned as a child that it is rude to discuss one's income. . .

I am not sure what you mean by bankruptcy administrative judges, unless you are referring to Bankruptcy Court Judges within the Federal Judiciary. Bankruptcy Judges are appointed for a term (I think 15 years) by, I think, the judges of the United States Circuit Court of Appeals in the Circuit in which the Bankruptcy Court sits. It is a complicated process. . . But, the Judges have a good salary and an even better retirement program. (I think it is 100 per cent at age 65 after 14 years of service. . . .)

I think that the biggest "pro" of the ALJ position is the lifetime/career appointment. Read the rest of this board for "cons," including lack of agency support, pressure to produce, typical government bureaucracy. . .

[judicature]

Pay for immigration judges is pretty comparable to the federal alj's, but unless you have immigration experience, they won't give you a second look right now because of the political controversy over some of the immigration judge appointments over the last few years (where non-immigration background, well connected political appointees were appointed). Immigration judges also work long hours and spend some time traveling on weekends and visiting federal prisons.

[aljsouth]

Immingration judges, like all Administrative Judges, have 0 protection and are ordered to do all sorts of things at polictical whim.

ALJ's, adminstrative law judges, are selected pursuant to statute and have protections.

Cons: SSA is a poor employer. It treats all employees badly. At the hightest levels there is active dislike of ALJ's. The regional staff are completely out of touch and have no clue about the work actually being done. SSA will constantly adopt an idea that won't work and force everyone to do it, then blame the judges and staff for its failure. The agency then micromanages.

Still, the pay is good, and the work can be interesting. The number of cases is daunting, but simply do your best and there is little the agency can do to you. It can be a very pleasant lifestyle in a good office.

[learnedhand]

The travel can be a pro or con depending on which office you are in. Some judges have to travel several days a week a couple of times a month to very undesirable locations. I have heard about travel places related to other offices that may be near the ocean, for example, that are quite attractive and sought after. Of course, VTC is changing a lot of that.

[oldenough]

I've been an ALJ for 20 years this month.

One of the other posters is quite correct at least with respect to ODAR: it treats its employees very badly; this is, in part due to the disconnect between people who actually work for a living, i.e., processing cases, and those who are bureaucrats, i.e., the surplus individuals, and there are many (all people in regional offices for example) who are essentially charged with watching other people work, counting what they do, and second-guessing what they do, all without any vague notion of what is actually involved in case processing (support staff), hearing and deciding cases (judges), and writing decisions (judges and writers).

I have been in two other positions before in this agency: I was only treated well in central office, and that was due to my position. In a hearing office you will find what amounts to a hostile work environment as you are urged to worship numbers over competence.

You will be treated with contempt by management; they are with rare exception two-faced; current exceptions are the current Chief Judge, Commissioner, and ODAR Dep. Comm., who are not two faced-----they are opening hostile to us. Two of the three are have no concept of doing these cases, and the one who should know better, as ambitious egotistical people often do, has sold his comrades out.

If we survive to democrat environment, things may improve; right now the agency appears intent on busting our union, and making examples of the weak.

You can enjoy this job if you forget about it the minute you walk out the door. And approach it with the knowledge that by and large management, while zero help, is irrelevant to your job and your life. They can get you if you screw up bigtime, and but not if you approach your job professionally and in good faith.

There can be, however, camaraderie in the face of adversity. The money is not bad; but we've lost something like 30% of our pay in 10 years due to the pay cap.

As they always say, be careful what you wish for.

[govtatty]

Obviously I don't know whether I will be offered a position.

Similarly, I have not decided whether I will accept a position.

I stumbled across this forum by accident and I get the impression that most of the aspiring ALJ posters are current or former Social Security Administration employees due to the lack of what I consider to be typical questions for job applicants such as ALJ job conditions, career advancement, job environment, salary, retirement, and other benefits and disadvantages that come with the turf.

Although I have sunk some money and time into the application process I wouldn't hesitate to call it quits if in fact it isn't the job I'm looking for.

My current federal job is considered by many to be an envious position but with hindsight sometimes I wonder whether I should have left my prior non-federal job. That being said, at least I've got 10+ years in the federal system now.

I agree with OldEnough "Be careful what you wish for."

For that reason I appreciate the candid responses and hope for additional responses for the benefit of myself and other non-insiders.

[odarite]

I haven't been an ALJ as long as OldEnough, but will add this. Job satisfaction as an ALJ for SSA depends a lot on your focus. Yes, the workload is huge, and all the bean counters know how to do is count beans, but if you focus on what you are actually doing, the job can be enormously rewarding. While there are probably malcontents in every office, the people I actually work with (a small sample of the total population of the office) are all hardworking and cheerful. There is a quality of life issue: This is the first job I have had since graduation from law school where after 40 hours per week you can go home. Although I lost a certain amount of freedom coming in from private practice (and if you are new to government, the vacation benefits for the first three years are a challenge) overall, I think I have gained more than I have lost. Again, coming from private practice, and although the retirement benefits are for the most part puny (being a Bankruptcy Judge is a better gig in that respect) being able to carry your health insurance into retirement at the employee rate is huge, for me and my self-employed spouse.

[deltajudge]

Oldenough has it right. One of the biggest advantages of the ALJ position in ODAR is the APA. It is a blessing, you can just do your job and ignore incompetent management, they can't lay a hand on you as long as you keep your nose clean. I was with OHA for 30 years, and it was a good ride, until the end, when e-dib reared its ugly head.

[Pixie]

Delta is right; edib will change the dynamics of the job for many. It is slower, even when working well, and there are many times it doesn't work well. From what I have heard, many judges will get tired of working with it and decide to retire. Don't know if that is accurate, but it may well happen. It is anticipated that most of the cases will be electronic by the Summer, so look for some edib induced retirements in the Fall. Pix.

[oldenough]

This is lifted from another source which I will not attribute: but if you read it you can surmise the current atmosphere for ALJ's: (and if any of you are old enough you might look at the new AARP magazine, which I have not seen yet, but understand the gist is not necessarily complimentary to us.)

I address the October 31, 2007 “Dear Colleague” of Chief Judge Cristaudo with considerable reservation and concern. It is truly a disingenuous communication which contains little, if any, substance and is filled with platitudes. He first gives us a compliment for the work we accomplished during the last fiscal year and then tells us that he knows how dedicated we are in serving the public. He follows with the “hook” that we should increase our case disposition rate to 500 to 700 cases each year. (This is a conversion from the “Old Frank Cristaudo” who used to say that 500 cases a year was all that could be reasonably expected from a judge) He contends that this number is reasonable and is based on historical data and experience. He never states what this historical data and experience consists of and we are now asking him to produce this evidence in a clear and detailed manner. The only agency information we have seen on productivity for the disability process comes from a time line study contained in a reform effort in the 1994 Plan For a New Disability Claim Process. This study completed a time line for a disability claim at all levels of the disability process, including the administrative law judge hearing. The study concluded that an administrative law judge could reasonably devote from 3 hours and 10 minutes to 7 hours to a case. This included time devoted by a judge from the initial pre-hearing review of the file to the final review and signing of the decision. When considering the work time available in an average month (4 1/3 weeks), a reasonable case disposition for a judge, based on this study, would be in the range of 24.7 to 54.7 cases each month. Last year Social Security Administrative Law Judges issued determinations in over 550,000 cases with an average monthly disposition rate of over 40 cases per judge. These production statistics clearly establish that the administrative law judges at Social Security are working hard and we are issuing determinations at levels which are at the high end of the agency’s timelines. It is also important to note, that while a case may be in ODAR for a year or more, the administrative law judge probably has the case in his/her possession for a period of only 3 hours 10 minutes to 7 hours. We suggest that it is not excessive to devote 7 hours to a claim that may cost the Social Security trust fund up to $250,000.00, including Medicare benefits. The 700 case assertion is even more incredulous when considered with the fact that Judge Cristaudo’s staff has repeatedly refused our request, at Labor Management Committee meetings, to allow our judges to work in their offices after 6 PM. The agency does not believe that we are dependable enough to lock up the offices and they claim they are concerned with our safety when working late. The agency and Judge Cristaudo present an incomprehensible position. They do not want us to work on Flexiplace and they do not want us to work in the office late, yet they are demanding more cases. It seems they need to clarify their position along the lines of reasonableness. Judges can not work at full capacity without adequate trained support staff and legally trained decision writers. The judges are not responsible for creating the disability case backlog. Yet we deal with it on a daily basis. The backlog was caused by a long line of poor management decisions and bad policy.

Judge Cristaudo states that fewer hearings should be cancelled or postponed by the judges. Along the same lines, we suggest that Judge Cristaudo use his influence to get the Appeals Council to support our “no-show” dismissal orders. We have learned that “no-show” cases can not be easily dismissed because the Appeals Council will routinely return them for hearing. Therefore, the remedy is to postpone the hearing and schedule a new hearing date.

Judges Cristuado recommends the use of “Streamlined” files (which is a reversal of his past position and a euphemism for producing a “sloppy” work product) and he then admits that it will take longer to review these files. Nevertheless, in the face of these glaring inconsistencies, he contends his evidence supports 700 cases a year. Along these lines, it is interesting to note that Jim Hill, President of the Local NTEU union, has reported that Judge Cristaudo recently stated in a meeting with him that the short fall in decision writing caused by staff attorneys doing “on the record decisions” will be made up by administrative law judges using FIT to write some of their own decisions. A plan could not be more ill-conceived if someone had drafted it to fail. We have had a long string of bad management decisions and failed reform plans since the 1990’s. We can not tolerate any more management mistakes. But as one great American said, “there they go again”.

Finally, our Chief Judge hits the bottom when he blames the case backlog on cancelled hearings “to work at a flexiplace location or to handle a matter outside the office”. It seems that if someone makes such a scurrilous remark, that person should produce the evidence to show that the conduct had a substantial impact on the case backlog. We are asking for that evidence or an apology.

Judge Cristaudo also refers to a plan “to eliminate the hearing backlog and prevent its recurrence”. We have seen nothing of substance that amounts to an effective or serious plan to address the case backlog. We have only seen efforts that “nibble at the edges” but will not have any substantial impact on addressing the case backlog. We must look at this problem like lawyers and start thinking as lawyers. We must start addressing the problems that we face as though we are reforming a court system and not repairing a social work process

[deltajudge]

I think Ron Bernoski's letter to the AALJ Assoc. pretty well sums the attitude towards ALJs by SSA a and ODAR management. Because of the APA it has always been a thorn in the side of of that bunch of buffoons. As I said in a previoul post there is always something sinister in their initiatives. I also think some of Astrue's stupid remarks, shows his complete ignorance opf ODAR's mission and purpose.

I think there is no doubt, with the formation of the NHO, eventually you will see less and less field offices, and you will have regional hearing offices, but they will have to keep the remote sites for hearings over the region. That would be a lot cheaper than a bunch of field offices, and the "human recourses" to run them. The wave of the future.