February Cert

[valkyrie]

"Valkyrie- How about "diabolically cunning" in selecting who they want; "hopelessly inept" in improving the hearing process (HPI, etc.) and increasing the backlog with constant micromanagement using non-attorney management officials!"

I'll not deny that management has screwed up some stuff in the past, (HPI), and is possibly screwing up the future, (centralized scheduling?!?!), but overall, in my own opinion, they appear to be making some real progress lately. Given, the sudden improvement could be related to how bad things had gotten with regard to the extent of the backlog and the press attention. But I know more than a few people who were in the training cadre, your typical cynical ODAR veterans, and they were extremely impressed by the quality of the training class, and there was not a whiff of suspicion of any kind of nepotistic favoritism. I have yet to hear anyone on these boards, or anyone in contact with any of the newly hired ALJs suggest that any of the new ALJs is not qualified, or has not performed well. I sure as heck would have said something If I knew of it. The last thing my office needs is another hapless ALJ.

[clw]

I received a Region III ODAR newsletter yesterday, which has a draft training schedule for 2009. It states that new ALJ training is scheduled for July 6-31 and Augut 3-28. I'm not sure what it means re: a February cert, but I thought I'd share it anyway.

[valkyrie]

"I received a Region III ODAR newsletter yesterday, which has a draft training schedule for 2009. It states that new ALJ training is scheduled for July 6-31 and Augut 3-28. I'm not sure what it means re: a February cert, but I thought I'd share it anyway."

Based upon the numder of ALJs that are to be hired from the new register, the class will be broken in half for more manageable numbers. I would guess a late May date for selection announcements based upon those dates.

[pm]

Jan 31, 2009 16:44:17 GMT -5 clw said:

I received a Region III ODAR newsletter yesterday, which has a draft training schedule for 2009. It states that new ALJ training is scheduled for July 6-31 and Augut 3-28. I'm not sure what it means re: a February cert, but I thought I'd share it anyway.

It tells us the date that those picked from a Feb cert will be trained.

[pm]

Jan 31, 2009 11:46:41 GMT -5 valkyrie said:

"For the rest of us, we can just hope that our interview with SSA goes (or has gone) well. Frankly, I don't know, nor have I heard here of anyone who got hired who was not known by someone at ODAR, but then I don't know much. "

First hand reports from a judge who was in the training cadre, and from a new judge in one of the classes indicate that well over half of those selected were not connected to ODAR in any way.

"The agency currently doesn't have to reach very far down to get these 15-20 people, but if you add hundreds of people on top of them, some of them are not going to be reachable."

If there is going to be a small cert prior to the new register, its only going to happen because the agency managed to successfully beg for some additional ALJs. The primary purpose will not be a simple matter of hiring more of their own special people. I'm not saying they will not get some more of their best and brightest with lower scores if they get the chance.

Just as many of the recent hires were not ODAR insiders, not everyone the agency still wants to hire from the old cert is an ODAR insider. There are certainly some people left they want who had limited geographic availability and thus did not have many options for getting picked up.