3 hours per case...

[deaddisco]

SSA wants a minimum of 50 alj decisions per month. Approximately 160 work hours in a month...thus roughly 3 hours per case. That includes case review, the hearing, and decision review prior to signing.

[judgegal]

That's doable with adequate staff preparation and backup. Some cases are easier than others, so the judge's time on them can balance it out, but the essential staff support is uneven. I depend on the staff for proper scheduling, sending out timely notices, and following my instructions for development. The hearing should take 30-45 minutes. A good draft decision does not require much editing. Unfortunately, it doesn't always happen that way.

[ggg]

I recently got a court remand that expressly criticized me for only spending 36 minutes on a hearing with an unrepresented claimant. Don't you see the fundamental conflict at work here, one in which we are caught in the middle? SSA doesn't want us, hearings or the APA. It only wants dispositions, the more and quicker the better. But the Appeals Council and the courts didn't get the message. If you do an unfavorable decision and don't turn over every obsure rock in the process (which you can't do in 30-45 minutes and 500-700 times a year), you're going to get it back. The infrastructure of this dysfunctional disability system is not designed to support us unless we pay quickly and often.

[deaddisco]

Dec 14, 2008 20:31:00 GMT -5 ggg said:

The infrastructure of this dysfunctional disability system is not designed to support us unless we pay quickly and often.

I hate to say it but "pay" does seem to be the implied message from the agency.

[ggg]

The OIG report we got a few months told us that the judges who disposed the most cases did so by conducting short hearings (sometimes with minimal experts--for which the AC and courts will take us to task if it's unfavorable) and issuing bench decisions. This comes out at the same time there is the constant drum beat for 500-700 dispositions. How naive are we if we don't connect the dots?

[nonamouse]

The highest producing ALJs in my office do quite a bit of screening for on-the-record dispositions. If someone is efficient in screening raw files, then it can add to the bottom line without the need for the staff to work up or schedule the case and with no hearing time at all for the ALJ. I have not had a great deal of time to spend on screening as I've tried to settle into a routine in the office. However, I look forward to using screening to keep my numbers balanced when leave time gets tossed into the mix.

It depends on how well the state agency people do their job, but we often find that with one phone call for an amended onset date to counsel that we can pay OTR and save time for ourselves and the staff. I'm fairly conservative in paying cases, but even I find enough OTRs to make screening worthwhile.

[morgullord]

You are all hung up on the "500 to 700 decisions per year" mantra. That number assumes 2080 hours of work per year with no absences.

If you can average 2.5 cases per 8 hours of availability you will be off the radar.

[southernmiss]

I am not a judge, but a senior attorney. One way you can get more cases, assuming they are already assigned to you, is to ask a Senior Attorney to review it for a possible OTR. If it is a grant, then they can type it for you and you get the credit for the case and they get the credit for writing it.

[southernmiss]

I review the Appeals Council and court remands that come into my office. I can tell you right now, that I could appeal, and win, almost every denial I write or any of my co-workers write. We do not have the time to do all the detailed discussions that a well written case requires. It is sort of like playing the odds-you do what you can and take your chances on the remand. I have gotten to the point that my favorable decisions are quite brief so that I can spend more time on denials, but even then, not enough time to do it really correctly.

[zero]

Interesting posts. Perhaps I'm naive but shouldn't a grant get just as much attention as a denial? Don't the taxpayers have an interest in not creating a lifetime of entitlement for an undeserving claimant?

[valkyrie]

I recall that the agency recently "suggested" that the expected hours required for a writer to complete a reversal is 4, and 8 hours for a partially favorabel or unfavorable. As noted before, some cases require little or no effort on the part of the office in order to earn a disposition, either favorable, unfavorable, or dismissal.

There are also some judges that do not do any pre-hearing review, average 20 minutes per hearing, do not initiate any pre or post-hearing development themselves, provide a one sentence instruction to the writers at most, and do not review the completed decision before signing it. If you do the math, that equals a half hour or less per disposition.

[arlene25]

I am also not an alj but a senior attorney. In our office, there are three writers who can crank out 3-4 unfavorables a day. They do it by basically printing out the FITS shell, not reading the file, adding the impairments and using boilerplate language. One of these writers has told me that is all he does. Their files routinely come back on remand. None of our aljs read the decisions, they sign them. The writers are lauded by the HOCALJ and HOD for doing so much work.

And our office has several ALJs who pay OTRs without even reading the file. I am constantly having to do half butt DAA arguments because the person is using meth. These aljs will not change their decision. I've given up trying because I just get a tongue lashing that they are the judge.

Sounds like one's ODAR experience depends on the office.

[valkyrie]

Its all about the office.

[extang]

Different hearing offices might as well be in different alternative universes. That is one of the things that makes discussions about ODAR/OHA so weird: each one of us "insiders" knows one or maybe two or three hearing offices and generalizes about ODAR based on that experience: people who have worked in different hearing offices are outraged and shocked.

[wallace]

Actually, SSA wants 500-700 decisions per year. 50 per month is 600. 42 per month is 500. So, if you decide 50 a month for 6 months, you've issued 300 decisions. Take a month off, issue 50 more per month for the remaining 5 (250) and you have 550 for the year.

50 month is very doable - busy sure - but we're paid as much as, if not more than, State Supreme Court Judges.

207.242.75.69/cgi-bin/showfile.exe?CISOROOT=/judicial&CISOPTR=131

[decadealj]

These are not case files- they are people and each and every one requires a conscientious analysis, evaluation and decision. I am blessed to have been given the task of resolving the issues presented and pray every day that I don't let one of the sheep fall through the crack of our society's safety net. For those of you who give a tinker's darn to management's goals and statistics (which I personally equate with "body count" in another life) may I respectfully suggest that you retire, quit or at least shut-up!

[wallace]

[quote author=decadealj board=general thread=649 post=10729 time=1229434776]These are not case files- they are people and each and every one requires a conscientious analysis, evaluation and decision. I am blessed to have been given the task of resolving the issues presented and pray every day that I don't let one of the sheep fall through the crack of our society's safety net. For those of you who give a tinker's darn to management's goals and statistics (which I personally equate with "body count" in another life) may I respectfully suggest that you retire, quit or at least shut-up! [/quote][/i]


Not only do you have a duty to "conscientiously" look at each case, you also have a duty to "conscientiously" decide cases (plural). Spending days on one case, while it would be nice, hardly does any service to the thousands waiting for their turn. And, yes, one can decide 500 cases a year "conscientiously."

[edit] BTW, I agree that dispositions is a terrible way to assess ALJ performance and lament that it is apparently the sole focus. Still, we need to be cognizant of the thousands waiting to be heard. Some production has to be expected

[decadealj]

I don't know many judges that do less than 40 cases a month on average which is precisely the number our Chief ALJ propsed was the maximum # an ALJ could conscientiously do when he was the regional chief about 12 years ago. HPI began the disaster and all the recent improvements have accelerated the downward spiral of the backlog. The economy hasn't helped but I was twice as productive when I had a team composed of a staff attorney, a paralegal writer, a legal assistant and a hearing assistant. Now we have CTs and SCTs that move things along without looking at it because of fear of management who does not understand the difference between management and leadership. Continuing to raise the ante is pointless. Sorry- now I'll shut-up!

[arlene25]

There has to be a happy medium between "spending days on one case" and just shuffling cases out the door, paying ones that should not be paid by ALJs who don't bother to read the cases and having poorly written unfavorable decisions by writers who also don't read the evidence...decadealj no need to shut up...

[wallace]

Dec 16, 2008 15:49:56 GMT -5 decadealj said:

I don't know many judges that do less than 40 cases a month on average which is precisely the number our Chief ALJ propsed was the maximum # an ALJ could conscientiously do when he was the regional chief about 12 years ago. HPI began the disaster and all the recent improvements have accelerated the downward spiral of the backlog. The economy hasn't helped but I was twice as productive when I had a team composed of a staff attorney, a paralegal writer, a legal assistant and a hearing assistant. Now we have CTs and SCTs that move things along without looking at it because of fear of management who does not understand the difference between management and leadership. Continuing to raise the ante is pointless. Sorry- now I'll shut-up!

I think you raise very valid points. I've enjoyed reading your take on the whole thing and sincerely hope you don't "shut up."

[edit] looks like arlene beat me to it, but, again, I concur with her statement.

Where is that happy medium? I don't know.