Social Security's Chief Administrative Law Judge has issued a bulletin concerning reports of suspected misconduct by claimant representatives. The new instructions replace material in the HALLEX Manual. The bulletin says that the misconduct reports are to go to the "Hearing Office Management Team," which, I assume, means those in charge at the local hearing office. According to the instructions, no report is supposed to be filed with state bar licensing authorities. That sounds a bit odd since bar ethics rules place an affirmative duty upon attorneys to report the misconduct of other attorneys as long as that misconduct "raises a substantial question as to that lawyer's honesty, trustworthiness, or fitness as a lawyer." The "Hearing Office Management Team" is supposed to forward the report on to the Regional Chief Administrative Law Judge who is supposed to forward the matter on to the Regional Chief Counsel.
I am pretty sure that the Regional Chief Counsels have not previously been involved in these matters. I think this would be a low priority matter for them. In fact, there seem to be a lot of layers here, a lot of places where misconduct reports could get sidetracked.
I am pretty sure that the Regional Chief Counsels have not previously been involved in these matters. I think this would be a low priority matter for them. In fact, there seem to be a lot of layers here, a lot of places where misconduct reports could get sidetracked.
5 comments:
The Regional Chief Counsels have been involved in alleged misconduct of representatives. That has been the case for more than a year.
Wouldn't the lawyer's responsibility to adhere to the ethical code be there, whether Social Security were involved or not? Maybe the instruction leaves out reporting to the Bar of suspected violations because it's assumed each person would proceed accordingly. Or not.
As an aside, I wonder how well the Office of General Counsel/Regional Counsel performs. Had little to do with them at my lowly level. I would be interesting to hear anything having a bearing on their general utility from the perspective of those representing claimants.
Ineffective attorney's certainly exist. Attornies who accept nearly every claim and fail to develope such claims,therefore lose the cases. Should be reported and punished.
This apply to non attornies too.
The reason for the restriction against reporting to the State Bar applies not just because of the Privacy Act cited in the material, but also because there have been past instances of personal feuds between individual ALJs and reps which resulted in the ALJs filing Bar complaints without consulting anyone else first. The ALJs cited the ethical duty you mentioned as the basis for why they had the authority to file a complaint without consulting with management first. For obvious reasons, SSA does not want ALJs filing Bar complaints without going through proper channels
Like usually, you are completely wrong, ill-informed, and just make things up. As comment #1, the RCC is involved in these cases and has been for years.
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