They'll need ODAR attorneys

[Propmaster]

OK, does this seem logical to people?

1) OCALJ/SSA seems at least not to avoid (if not to affirmatively seek out) ODAR attorneys for hiring into the ALJ corps.
2) Despite the freeze in hiring in general, with all these ALJ promotions, a lot of ODAR attorney positions will need to be filled.

With these premises, does it make sense to keep one's eyes open for inevitable job postings to try to get an "in?"

[okeydokey]

This is a good point.

In addition to gaining program knowledge and becoming more attactive as a hire, by joining ODAR one will gain knowledge on how to write administrative decisions and hold hearings, which might be of assistance on the WD and SI parts of the application.

[counselor95]

I was fortunate enough to come on board 18 months ago as an AA, and the learning curve was pretty steep. I still don't know it all, but my time spent writing decisions definitely helped -- there is a lot to learn. I'm not sure it helped with the SI, but it did help with the WD (my opinion, but who knows, without having gotten our scores broken down).

There will be openings due to hiring these ALJs from within the agency, including Senior Attorneys and other upper level positions, which may be filled by AAs. That may open up additional AA slots for new external hires. Last week at the Atlanta CLE, several high level SSA management folks told us that there is enough money to replace folks who have left the agency. I am not sure if that extends to replacing all the newly hired ALJs, but that would make sense.

Of course, there is never a guarantee that taking an AA position would lead to an ALJ offer . . . one would have to be happy with the AA spot for an indefinite time.

[lostagain]

Feb 29, 2008 10:21:54 GMT -5 counselor95 said:

I was fortunate enough to come on board 18 months ago as an AA, and the learning curve was pretty steep. I still don't know it all, but my time spent writing decisions definitely helped -- there is a lot to learn. I'm not sure it helped with the SI, but it did help with the WD (my opinion, but who knows, without having gotten our scores broken down).

There will be openings due to hiring these ALJs from within the agency, including Senior Attorneys and other upper level positions, which may be filled by AAs. That may open up additional AA slots for new external hires. Last week at the Atlanta CLE, several high level SSA management folks told us that there is enough money to replace folks who have left the agency. I am not sure if that extends to replacing all the newly hired ALJs, but that would make sense.

Of course, there is never a guarantee that taking an AA position would lead to an ALJ offer . . . one would have to be happy with the AA spot for an indefinite time.

This raises the issue whether it makes sense to choose jobs based on whether they will increase the probability of becoming an ALJ once OPM gets back to assembling a normal register (of much greater size than the current one) and the probability of getting an ALJ position drops precipitously for all but the highest scorers and vets. On the other hand, SSA is the usual portal into the ALJ community and the agency seems to care greatly about finding people will will crank out a high volume of work product and were not just hoping pass through on their way to a regulatory agency in DC.

[nonamouse]

If a person does not have a sufficient diversity of experience, then they will not get past OPM in order to be vetted by any hiring agency. I would suggest looking at the ARs and determining your weakest areas if you want to look for a new job to enhance your chances of becoming an ALJ.

There is no magic formula of agency vs. non-agency experience. Personally, I had sufficient diversity in my career to have something for all ARs. I specifically came to ODAR to gain inside experience because I knew that I wanted to be an ALJ for ODAR at some point. I didn't believe they would open the register this soon, but it still gave me a few years of experience before applying. I ended up with a good score, but limited availability at the time that I made the list of cities. You can believe that I will be expanding my availability as soon as OPM allows it and hopefully before the next big certificate is pulled.

All of that being said, I don't think that it would hurt your chances if you come to ODAR after having litigation experience and you do a good job. If someone comes inside and does not produce or they gain a bad rep for some other reason. . . well it might be worse than applying as an "outsider."

[lostagain]

Feb 29, 2008 12:13:52 GMT -5 nonamouse said:

All of that being said, I don't think that it would hurt your chances if you come to ODAR after having litigation experience and you do a good job. If someone comes inside and does not produce or they gain a bad rep for some other reason. . . well it might be worse than applying as an "outsider."

Now, if there were some GS 15 slots open . . . .

[morgullord]

Working at ODAR as an attorney advisor will not improve your chances to be an ALJ.

[nonamouse]

Mar 4, 2008 8:29:51 GMT -5 morgullord said:

Working at ODAR as an attorney advisor will not improve your chances to be an ALJ.

Do you remember the questions asked at the SSA interview? There were quite a few skills/experiences that they were looking for that could be gained at ODAR. For instance, I don't know how many other places are paperless, but their paperless files are not the same as ODAR files. An ability to work with good productivity within their hearing offices was clearly a major concern, so someone who had no experience relevant to their specific concerns might gain some knowledge by working at ODAR (even for a few years). Of course, that won't work for federal attorneys who are too high on the GS or executive pay scale already.

I believe that having only ODAR AA experience is not going to help someone become an ALJ because they would lack the courtroom experience. However, as part of a deeper work history, it probably won't hurt someone, especially if they are in an office where management allows them to do more than the minimum.

[tater]

Man, in 2 years, they can have my job. It has been a loooooong haul!

[Propmaster]

Mar 4, 2008 14:02:38 GMT -5 nonamouse said:

Do you remember the questions asked at the SSA interview? There were quite a few skills/experiences that they were looking for that could be gained at ODAR. For instance, I don't know how many other places are paperless, but their paperless files are not the same as ODAR files. An ability to work with good productivity within their hearing offices was clearly a major concern, so someone who had no experience relevant to their specific concerns might gain some knowledge by working at ODAR (even for a few years). Of course, that won't work for federal attorneys who are too high on the GS or executive pay scale already.

I believe that having only ODAR AA experience is not going to help someone become an ALJ because they would lack the courtroom experience. However, as part of a deeper work history, it probably won't hurt someone, especially if they are in an office where management allows them to do more than the minimum.

I'm stil confused over the value of "courtroom" experience for an ALJ. A lot of state court judges who don't spend time doing something else between state court and ALJing seem to have a lot of difficulty understanding 1) the non-adversarial process of SSA, 2) the "three hats" concept, 3) that the rules of evidence do not strictly apply, and 4) that the content of their decisions is reviewed for compliance with regulatory explanatory requirements, not just a "abuse of discretion" standard.

At the interview, after summarizing my computer skills (I'm the network administrator at my work) and my familiarity with programs, I asked the interviewers when ALJs use Power Point. Maybe that was a bad idea, although I thought we had a bit of rapport. They didn't answer right away, so I asked, "I guess that's only for chief judges, right?" And they nodded. And I said I would be willing to be a chief judge and knew enough about Power Point to do it.

Until actually committing this to paper (screen) it didn't occur to me that that might have come out wrong. At the time, it seemed to go along with the flow of the interview - I'm talkative and irrepressively jovial. I wonder if that got me bad marks (I really did think I did well). Oh well, if you can't take a joke...

But getting back to the point, when do ALJs have to quell rowdy attorney arguments? If they're a part of the argument, it's not courtroom skills, but interpersonal skills you want. I want my ALJs asking questions they think I've missed - I can't read their minds. If they want to know something, don't just say in the decision that there was "no evidence" of something, when you didn't bother to ask it.

There's no jury, there's no sentencing guidelines, there's a single area of law and a single set of procedures. What about courtroom abilities is useful?

Of course, decisiveness, good judgment, etc. - good judging qualities - are important; but they do not come only from "courtroom experience."

Do they?

[bettrlatethannevr]

I was also struck by how the whole three-part OPM sequence was premised largely upon assessing not only one's ability to manage adversarial proceedings, but also one's ability to respond well in situations involving adjudicating regulatory compliance (or non-compliance). I imagine OPM must do that, since there are agencies which rely upon the register to produce ALJs having such skills. But a review of numerous postings here suggests to me that this reliance effectively tied the hands of the register's largest consumer, and in so doing left out a number of candidates very well qualified for the position at hand. Just joining the discussion of observations - I don't presently have any thoughts on a better way to do it. BLTN

[lostagain]

Mar 4, 2008 16:36:23 GMT -5 Propmaster said:

Mar 4, 2008 14:02:38 GMT -5 nonamouse said:

But getting back to the point, when do ALJs have to quell rowdy attorney arguments? If they're a part of the argument, it's not courtroom skills, but interpersonal skills you want.
Do they?

I'll try to rationalize OPM's focus. The OPM process is necessarily generic since more than one agency hires off the register and all ALJs must come off of it (regardless of where they end up). ALJs at regulatory agencies have to quell rowdy arguments quite often. Especially that small number of ALJs that have limited-jurisdiction, private tort cases on their dockets. While interpersonal skills are necessary to run a courtroom, courtroom experience also helps because it provides an experiential basis for seeing the big procedural picture and being able anticipate, get at the core of and resolve mid-hearing disputes. In general, former litigators have a head start in the "trial and error" process (pun not really intended) that all new judges face in determining exactly how to run their courtroom. Former judges are way ahead of that curve. Finally, while the rules of evidence don't govern APA proceedings, some agencies often look to the principles upon which the rules rest in order to flesh out the vague evidentiary language of the APA (and regulations that implement the APA).

[nonamouse]

I don't think that the initial focus of OPM is all bad. While some people don't understand the value of adversarial experience, I believe that the best ALJs I've worked with at ODAR have the adversarial experience. There are people who have many hours in a courtroom who were not very good at it. There are also people who honed their ability to think on their feet, size up witnesses and other attorneys rapidly, etc. The ability to control a hearing or trial (even without two or more attorneys actively fighting) is a learned skill.

When I first changed areas of practice from civil/admin litigation in county courts to prosecuting, I was chastised by one judge for not controlling her courtroom. I was stunned because I thought that was her job. With more experience under my belt, I learned the subtle and delicate art of a prosecutor steering a courtroom for a more passive (or not so passive) judge without overstepping or making it obvious. I was able to use it when I switched again to a highly adversarial admin process on the state government side.

Interpersonal skills alone do not allow someone to evaluate the credibility of a witness during the testimony and shift a line of inquiry on the spot to delve deeper into an area that appears shady or one that has not been developed sufficiently. There is an art to developing a rapport with a hostile witness so that they will give up their secrets. These skills don't happen merely by taking speech classes or doing debate in school or even by practicing a type of law that does not require frequent questioning of hostile witnesses. It takes many, many hours of actually doing these tasks to hone one's skills in the area.

I would not expect someone to hire me to program computers because I knew how to physically build a computer. The skills are not identical although they all further the goal of having a working computer. Now if I could boast of the complete package of skills needed to get the product finished, well I think I could sell myself better to an employer.

[Propmaster]

Thanks for the interesting replies, they were helpful to me. I had neglected to consider that OPM needs all kinds of ALJs. I wasn't on board SSA doing its own ALJ evaluation at first, but now I see how it would benefit the agency (and me ).

When I was talking about "courtroom experience," I meant to be talking about experience being an adversarial judge, and I think I was unclear.

I really wonder about ALJs who treat claimants as "hostile witnesses." For one thing, the ALJ is not supposed to be on "the other side" to a claimant. For another, the main problem with claimants's testimony in my experience is their inability to understand the point of the question and articulate an answer. In these situations, hostility is not the answer (although I've seen it tried over and over) but the ability to adapt and adjust questioning to get at the answers.

A Social Security hearing is not long enough to "break down" an outright lying witness' story. If they're enough of an idiot to be able to be tripped up in 30-45 minutes, it won't really require finely-honed cross-examination skills. Or maybe I'm just good at reading people. Most exagerating claimants are not d**ned by testimony, but by medical evidence, written inconsistencies in their paperwork, and 3rd party statements. Maybe I'm wrong, and the ALJs on this board can comment, but I would think they are few and far between the claimants who you think are credible going in to the hearing, and only on rigorous cross-examination do they come out not credible (as opposed to simply unusual answers to standard questions).

So I maintain that cross-examination skill is only useful if you are going to assume that otherwise credible-seeming claimants are probably lying and you have to get the truth out of them. I have seen these ALJs. They are not a credit to the corps.

And they cause more backlog than they solve, because we have to do the same case two, three, four times just to get past that bias.

Rather, the classic skills of "client interviewing" are much more valuable for an ALJ. The times I have been surprised by things I was not told by my clients (that were harmful to the case) have almost always been when the ALJ forms a rapport with the client in the form of a friendly discussion, not a "Courtroom."

As I said, I understand a little more about OPM;s process now, so thanks for the responses. But I maintain that the OPM scores were really not too relevant to SSA's needs, and I am a little disappointed that the range of scores did not seem even larger - but I also understand that the pool of applicants was very good, and I don't doubt the abilities of those who made it. Congrats.

[mrjones]

nona, with all due respect the disability hearing system is not adversarial and there's little need for ultra-clever cross-examining skills. In my long experience, about 7/10 ALJs on average say nothing as to claimant credibility and leave it to me to assess, and too many ALJs simply ask questions from a standard form and don't deviate. The litigator ALJs hold longer hearings, hold supplemental hearings, have experts, and in the end only make a simple medical record convoluted and are highly unproductive based on the time invested in each single case. One in particular used to make sure that every little discrepancy was exposed - "at the hearing you said that you did not like to read, but three months previous to the hearing you stated that you did." His approach was really out of line and unneccesary. I think that analyzing credibility as a staff atty. should serve well as an ALJ because there are very few "suprises" after you've handled a heavy voume of these cases, for years on end. And as suggested by prop, the outright malingerer cases are the easiest to deal with, with no need to rough them up, and most claimants tend to trip themselves up by their own statements through the course of their filings and statements to their docs. Beyond this, the objective medical evidence should serve as the primary basis for disability - not the hot air at the hearing - and litigation experience is not necessarily the best foundation for an ODAR ALJ. The best advice to new ALJs is to "handle the courtroom" simply by knowing the medical facts of the case, and ask questions accordingly. (If only OPM cared.)

[arlene25]

Well said, Mr. Jones. I was just going to post the exact same points, but you said it better.

[lostagain]

Maybe social scientists will be able to perfect the "fake bad scale" that was discussed in today's WSJ.

[jagghagg]

Yes, the WILL need ODAR attorneys and, as of today, the first surge of openings is on USAJobs.

[knownuthin]

Looks to me like the USA Jobs postings are for OGC attorneys and not ODAR. The locations probably indicate where OGC lost attorneys in the ALJ hire.

[jagghagg]

It will be a domino effect.



"Oooooooh-oh, Domino!"

;D