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Post by saaao on Oct 3, 2015 16:23:11 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? The fact that they are keeping an SA adjudication unit going is a good sign, and suggests the program might restarted in the future. This is the second time that SA's have been given adjudication power and then had it removed. Regional attorneys are not all OGC types, and I know of writers who have moved to regional offices for GS-13 and 14 positions. Quality review is probably your best bet for that. Unless you already have some litigation experience, OGC will be hard to move to as a writer. All the OGC people I know came to OGC with 3-5 years outside litigation experience. I think when they do hire people without litigation experience they are hiring directly from law school. I can't think of any writer who went OGC who hadn't been a litigator prior to joining the agency.
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elvis
Full Member
Viva Falls Church!
Posts: 69
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Post by elvis on Oct 3, 2015 20:13:24 GMT -5
Within recent years, some AAs who have completed details at OGC have received offers when they subsequently applied to OGC. It is not a career path, but it isn't exactly rare these days.
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Post by cafeta on Oct 3, 2015 21:04:24 GMT -5
Within recent years, some AAs who have completed details at OGC have received offers when they subsequently applied to OGC. It is not a career path, but it isn't exactly rare these days. I know some of these people; awesome, everyone! (Of those that I know).
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Post by aljwishhope on Oct 4, 2015 6:57:10 GMT -5
Trademark attorney entry positions posted. Similar to being a writer. New subject matter. Go to uus a jobs to see post. This is responsive to posts about other career opportunities. I do not know if senior attorneys spots will open. In the couple years i was at ssa I know decision writers who went to OGC. Maybe we just had an awesome group but many went on to be ALJs senior attorneys OGC and headquarters attorneys in Baltimore. Perservere be patient and prepared.
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Post by prescient on Oct 4, 2015 10:27:44 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? The fact that they are keeping an SA adjudication unit going is a good sign, and suggests the program might restarted in the future. This is the second time that SA's have been given adjudication power and then had it removed. Regional attorneys are not all OGC types, and I know of writers who have moved to regional offices for GS-13 and 14 positions. Quality review is probably your best bet for that. Unless you already have some litigation experience, OGC will be hard to move to as a writer. All the OGC people I know came to OGC with 3-5 years outside litigation experience. I think when they do hire people without litigation experience they are hiring directly from law school. I can't think of any writer who went OGC who hadn't been a litigator prior to joining the agency. Don't forget the importance of being "well connected." I do believe a former CALJ's son currently works for OGC.... As to the OP's question. IMO, SSA is never going to be able to hire enough ALJs to make a substantial dent in the backlog. At some point, I believe SAAs will be used in a broader capacity again to handle cases that should be adjudicated much more quickly. As for the time table for when this might occur...Ugh. I'm not optimistic that it will be any time soon.
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Post by mamaru on Oct 4, 2015 12:41:57 GMT -5
For the record, I know of a writer who went to OGC without litigation experience. DW was his first legal job. He had about three years when he made the jump. No detail involved.
Also, as a clarification, when I expressed concern about confidentiality regarding how the SA experience "counts" for OPM I was not referring to the job announcement. Instead, I was referring to the self-rating portion of the online testing phase of the selection process which weights various types of legal experience. As ALJD pointed out, nobody really knows how much (if any) weight OPM gave to any portion of the online test or if the online results carried over into the final scoring. All behind the curtain. But the specifics of that scoring scheme were what I meant.
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Post by cafeta on Oct 4, 2015 23:07:43 GMT -5
I found the self-rating portion of the online testing to be very interesting. At least the varied responses to it. I know of several people, including myself, with almost identical experience factors, but the self-rating was all over the place. One rated their self waaaaay low, while the others ran the scale right up very near the top. Because, after all, it was self-rating, and different folks with different perspectives evaluated similar experiences differently. Incidentally, the one that ranked their self lowest, move forward, not all others did (like me), so clearly the self-ranking was not dispositive! Which I imagine surprises no one!
Editorial comment: the use of "their" above is used to remain gender neutral in the text.
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Post by mercury on Oct 5, 2015 12:49:42 GMT -5
Trademark attorney entry positions posted. Similar to being a writer. New subject matter. Go to uus a jobs to see post. This is responsive to posts about other career opportunities. I do not know if senior attorneys spots will open. In the couple years i was at ssa I know decision writers who went to OGC. Maybe we just had an awesome group but many went on to be ALJs senior attorneys OGC and headquarters attorneys in Baltimore. Perservere be patient and prepared. Thanks for this! It looks like the positions are GS-11 with no automatic bump to 12 or higher, so this looks even slightly worse than DW jobs though.
Are all the Feds doing away with career ladders and requiring competitive promotions for every grade now?
Any other ideas about how to stay a GS employee while developing experience and skills that would qualify one to be an ALJ?
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Post by aljwishhope on Oct 5, 2015 13:22:41 GMT -5
I am awful at replying to the correct posr. Re trademark positions. My source says it continues to be pretty steady progression from go 11 to 14. You get overtime and bonuses and after some time in job can work from home. Further even though the uspto is in Alexandria va you can work from home anywhere in United states. Advancement also to management who work from home interlocutory attorneys go 15 who work for trademark trial and appeal board (ttab) and ttab judges. It might not be a better job than SSA but I really do not think it is worse. Folks who have left for firms have certainly returnedto these jobs.
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Post by minny on Oct 5, 2015 15:29:54 GMT -5
Trademark attorney entry positions posted. Similar to being a writer. New subject matter. Go to uus a jobs to see post. This is responsive to posts about other career opportunities. I do not know if senior attorneys spots will open. In the couple years i was at ssa I know decision writers who went to OGC. Maybe we just had an awesome group but many went on to be ALJs senior attorneys OGC and headquarters attorneys in Baltimore. Perservere be patient and prepared. Thanks for this! It looks like the positions are GS-11 with no automatic bump to 12 or higher, so this looks even slightly worse than DW jobs though.
Are all the Feds doing away with career ladders and requiring competitive promotions for every grade now?
Any other ideas about how to stay a GS employee while developing experience and skills that would qualify one to be an ALJ?
Well, there are litigation jobs in the federal sector. I believe that all of my federal labor and employment litigation met the criteria for 7 years although I had plenty of private sector experience to cover. I am a GS-14, and there are GS-14's available, particularly if you are willing to move to DC or a few other places.
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Post by minny on Oct 5, 2015 15:31:42 GMT -5
*meant to say there are GS-15's available but my doggone phone auto corrected*
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Post by redryder on Oct 7, 2015 13:23:06 GMT -5
The idea of the SAA was a great one from the inception in 1995. The implementation of the program was a disaster from the inception in 1995. There was no training given to those promoted. There was no uniformity in how the offices implemented the program. In some offices, the SAA did nothing but screen cases for on-the-record decisions. In others, the SAA continued to write the complex decisions, train new writers and screen cases. When ODAR finally started reviewing SAA decisions for quality (prior to 2000), the remand rate was comparable to the AC remand rate for judges. Which sounds good, until you realize that every SAA decision was a fully favorable, and the ALJ decisions were predominantly affirmations or partially favorable decisions. That's comparing an apple and an orange. ODAR may not be able to control an outlier ALJ without a lot of time and effort. But it's easy to control an outlier SAA--remove or restrict the authority.
I would hope that the program will come back. It did mean that cases that truly did not require hearings were disposed of with minimal time and effort in the hearing office. It opened hearing dates for those cases that required them. If someone in ODAR HQ will only give the program some forethought and roll-out a plan, it is could be done. It certainly would make more sense than the current plan which produced an abysmal number of dispositions this past fiscal year.
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Post by phoenixrakkasan on Oct 7, 2015 17:14:17 GMT -5
Who knows? ALJs positions need to be filled.
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Post by lonestar on Oct 7, 2015 17:47:28 GMT -5
From what I have seen (after working in two different hearing offices), the SAA position vanishes into the ether, i.e. it is gone. As an attorney advisor at a GS-12, if you want to move to a GS-13, you need to become a supervisor, transfer to headquarters (where GS-13 positions are more available), or obtain a lateral OGC position, which would allow you to move up to GS-13 in a year. For now, consider the SAA program dead. Even with recent personnel changes, it is doubtful they will resurrect to any meaningful degree. Right now, the focus is on hiring as many ALJs as possible.
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Post by prescient on Oct 7, 2015 18:59:37 GMT -5
Just so I'm getting this right again have not been with the agency nearly as long as many of you, if an SAA in your hearing office retires do they fill the position or is it just gone? It's unfortunately gone.
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Post by JudgeRatty on Oct 7, 2015 20:27:03 GMT -5
Just so I'm getting this right again have not been with the agency nearly as long as many of you, if an SAA in your hearing office retires do they fill the position or is it just gone? They have not been filling them.
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Post by Judicially Imployed on Oct 7, 2015 22:50:11 GMT -5
The question was asked in recent DW training to judge Allen (who stepped in for Bice at the last minute) about the future of the SAA program. While he did not come out and say they would not be opening SAA positions up, the answer was much more "we are looking for ways to value out of those who already have the title" then "we think this is a useful program long term (and will fill open positions)."
"25% of the SAA job duty is to perform research for the judges." "We are looking for ways to utilize SAAs such as the current pilot program where SAAs have prehearing conferences with unrepped claimant's to update the medical file prior to hearing."
The question was specifically asked if having SAAs go back to doing own motion review / fully favorables would be considered in light of the huge backlog. The answer avoided this function completely, which I translated to mean, no.
Nothing in government is forever, but I'd say no new SAA hiring in the foreseeable future I'm afraid.
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Post by firefly on Oct 8, 2015 8:07:58 GMT -5
I'm an SAA who was hired in 2009 and was lucky enough to get the promotion to SAA before it was phased out. In my office, SAA duties are a little different than AAs. We are given the harder cases to write (voluminous records, AC remands, etc.). We have been doing prehearing conferences as well (though that's temporarily on hold). We continue to screen cases for possible OTRs as well. To accommodate the removal of our adjudicatory abilities, when we find a case we think is suitable for OTR, it's sent up to an ALJ who will review it and either agree to sign off on the OTR decision, or say that it needs to go forward to a hearing.
As to the NAT unit- I actually interviewed for that detail though I wasn't selected. One of the questions I asked during the interview was whether the program would be expanded in the future to include more SAAs. I was told that it would be eventually. It sounded like they wanted to have the unit running smoothly, work out any kinks, and then expand it if it's going well and serving its purpose in reducing the backlog.
As to the question regarding the replacement of SAAs who leave the office, my office has lost a few SAAs to retirement or to ALJ promotions in the last few years, but no new SAA promotions were offered to fill those spots. i'll second the advice that the path to GS13 seems to be through a group supervisor these days. I believe after serving as a group sup for two years, you are allowed to step down and remain at GS13 as an SAA, but I may be wrong about that.
If you are thinking of leaving the agency to gain more outside experience- My two cents would be that litigation experience is valued much more than experience as a claimant's rep for SSA hearings. As we all know, the hearings aren't adversarial and are not viewed in the same light as litigation experience within adversarial proceedings.
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Post by mamaru on Oct 8, 2015 8:21:47 GMT -5
Just so I'm getting this right again have not been with the agency nearly as long as many of you, if an SAA in your hearing office retires do they fill the position or is it just gone? It's unfortunately gone. One SAA retirement in my HO. He was replaced with an AA, but that was several years ago. Now they don't seem to be replacing AA's in HO's.
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Post by redryder on Oct 8, 2015 11:04:26 GMT -5
Mamaru: We see the same thing in this HO. No replacement for a retiring writer. From the big picture, it looks like the FTEs from the HO are going to the centralized writing units and pulling units. Which are being put in space that ODAR already has under lease. No increase in the foot print there. Plus it gets these HO ready for downsizing in square footage when the leases come due. From an expense standpoint, it makes good sense. The backside of this building is basically vacant with the writers working at home as much as possible. If the techs ever get to work at home on e-files, the front will be too. The only ones here are on a regular basis are the judges (most of whom choose not to work at home), the staff for the front desk, IT, managers and the guard. No doubt there are changes coming in the way the hearing offices look and operate. Video hearings. Expert witnesses dialing in for hearings. More and more emphasis on learning to do as much as one can on the computer. Flexibility is definitely a much desired trait in the new hires in all positions.
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