Feb 8, 2013

OPM Says ALJ Register To Open Soon

     The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) issued an announcement yesterday saying that it will soon open a new examination for Administrative Law Judges (ALJs). They did not say when this will happen or how long the examination will be open. OPM's use of the term "examination" is misleading since there is no examination in the sense that one might take a calculus exam in college. The ALJ examination is primarily a review of applications submitted by job candidates. 
     In the past, OPM has at times only accepted ALJ applications for ridiculously short periods of time -- like 24 hours. This has been a huge advantage for those who work at Social Security where word spreads quickly. There have been reports of attorneys at Social Security's Office of General Counsel flying out the doors after word spread that OPM was taking ALJ applications. Attorneys rushed home to file their applications before the register closed.
     I'm not sure why OPM is doing this. I don't see how Social Security or any other agency is going to be hiring ALJs in the near future given Republican efforts to prevent adequate funding for government operations. Unless something changes soon, we're more likely to see partial furloughs of Social Security ALJs than new Social Security ALJs being hired.

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

1. the current registry has been closed for nearly 4 years. It's long overdue to let new blood into the applicant pool

2. the registry will not be limited to the 1st 900 applicants like the last time, so no need to "rush out of the office" to complete your application

3. many current ALJs are old. some very old. there will always be a need to replace those who retire. with the changes to how unused sick leave is paid out going into effect 1/1/2014, expect a LARGE retirement of ALJs in 2014.

4. agencies other than SSA also use OPM's list.

Anonymous said...

If a large amount of ALJs retire in 2014, will the newly hired ALJs be as "low paying" as the newer ALJs we now see? It seems that the newer batch of ALJs mostly seem to fall in the "denier" spectrum of judges. Makes us thankful for many of the oldtimer ALJs and hope they stick around as long as possible.

Anonymous said...

ALJs won't be furloughed - we were told last time that we will still show up and hold hearings without staff assistance.

Anonymous said...

you're seeing more "low payer" ALJs because: 1) the pool of applicants is weaker in the recession (despite Charles' claim that the increase in apps is solely because boomers get disabled more); 2) they are being trained better on the law and actually follow it in decisions; and 3) they aren't jaded and burned out, paying to avoid the hassles of remands, editing a paralegal's UF decision, etc.

Get ready, reps. the days of old ALJs throwing 96-8p pays all over the place are coming to an end.

Anonymous said...

Actually, the reason you are seeing a lower pay rate amont ALJ's is in part due to the informal remand process wherein OTR cases are paid outside the office and no ALJ gets credit for the pay, along with the Senior Attorney program paying more cases. All the ALJ is getting to hear are more complex less marginal cases. Had one the other day, claimant couldn't use the outer three fingers of his left hand due a wine bottle accident. Only impairment. When asked why we were at a hearing, he said, I can't drive semi's anymore. Then he was upset when the VE gave job she could do... Duhhhh. The river in Egypt.. Denial...

Anonymous said...

To annon 1:12: I can understand the overall pay rate to go down with the increased application numbers, but I've noticed my firm's approval rate has appreciably dropped as well. The quality of cases we accept has not declined - only the amount that are now being awarded by ALJs. This concern is not unique to my office. All other reps I speak with complain of the same fact. Is there some secret edict from "above" encouraging new ALJs to deny more cases?

Anonymous said...

your information only counters my point in 1). See, 2) and 3), which remain true regardless of outside factors affecting the types of cases that get to the ALJs in the first place.

To answer more specifically, I personally think there is some pressure to not use 96-8p/96-9p/85-15 as a basis for pay. One of the first quarterly trainings for ALJs and writers focused on how you cannot just put "can't work on a regular and continuing basis" or "less than sedentary" as an RFC.
By reinforcing the (not new and legally accurate) notion that one has to put specific limitations in the RFC and not just "can't work," judges are less likely to pay because they now have to find specific things that prevent work.

Go back and look at older decisions. How many FFs/PFs do you see that have RFCs like that?

So it isn't that the higher ups want ALJs to pay less, they just want them to churn out better decisions. That hurts the old brand of vague FFs.

Anonymous said...

The ALJ position used to be available to experienced attorneys. The newer crops are primarily all SSA decision writers/staff attorneys or general counsels- thus the reason for the decrease in quality. Of course, most of these people have never tried cases or even had actual clients to deal with. Who knows why these people were given preference but it is likely that Astrue felt their knowledge of SSA would be beneficial to their productivity--of course apparently that's all that matters anymore.

Its so ironic that attorney's, excuse me "Reps" petitioned for new ALJ's only to get lower retroactive pay and higher denial rates.

It was such an irony why

Anonymous said...

3:08 hasn't the first clue.

agency employees are the bad ALJs? ha! OPM and their desire to hire the most experienced trial lawyers was the issue. These clowns thought they knew the law--and they do, the real law. But ODAR doesn't follow the rules of evidence, etc., and SSA hearings aren't like trials in State or Federal courts. In reality, the problem ALJs were by and large the "real" lawyers with tons of non-SSA experience who came in and thought they were real judges and knew everything and didn't bother to learn the regs.

Anonymous said...

Some puzzling responses here. So ALJ pay rates are lower because of better training and the fact new ALJs are not burned out? If anything, it's the lack of proper training that we're seeing in these unfavorable decisions from rookie ALJs. Blatant disregard of grid rules or treating physician assessments. We're seeing numerous initial favorable decisions on reapplications from ALJ denials. This is certainly a trend that's being noticed by attorney reps.

Anonymous said...

Regarding the previous post concerning the case where the loss of use of three fingers was preventing work -- upon denial, that person show have had to pay court costs and be barred from filing again.

On the flip side, I've been with SSA long enough to be surprised as heck some liberal ALJ didn't approve the case anyway. I've seen far too many poorly written case decisions from ODAR. We recently had one that was awarded by an ALJ, later reviewed and overturned causing a $30.000.00 overpayment -- nice work!

Anonymous said...

Treating source opinions aren't entitled to controlling or even great weight if they are not supported by the other evidence of record--especially their own treatment notes! And, lest we forget, all your cute little NP and PA opinions are not medical source statements (and thus can't get controlling weight in the first place) and are evaluated just like the wife's or the friend's statement pursuant to SSR 06-3p.

Anonymous said...

"all your cute little NP and PA opinions"

That quote says more about the snottiness of the commenter than anything about SS law.

N. Pr's and PA's see the poorest of the poor claimants because their limited or non existent health care coverage limits them to clinics or offices staffed by non-doctors to save costs and provide at least minimal care.