National Law Journal On ALJ Lawsuit

I saw this link on the CONNECT Board. The National Law Journal has an article about the Association of Administrative Law Judges lawsuit about the process for hiring more ALJs. Here are a couple of excerpts:

For the first time in nearly a decade, the executive branch this past spring opened a register to applications for administrative law judge positions. Within three days of posting the announcement on the government jobs Web site, the opening closed, having drawn a targeted 1,250 applicants. Was it long pent-up demand or something not quite proper that prompted the application onslaught?

The latter, charges the Association of Administrative Law Judges, a union of ALJs, in a federal lawsuit filed this summer. The suit contends one or more federal agencies received advance notice of the vacancy announcement and shared that information with its own attorneys, and, as a result, those agency attorneys received preferential treatment over other qualified attorneys in private practice. Association of Administrative Law Judges v. U.S. Office of Personnel Management, No. 07-0711. ...

"There is a sense of antagonism between [the Office of Personnel Management] and ALJs, at least from the ALJs' view," said a longtime ALJ. "They see an institution historically required to manage and protect ALJs, which now is really doing neither or not doing it very well."