My firm has been notified that several hundred cases are being transferred from the Office of Disability Adjudication and Review (ODAR) office in Charlotte to the Seattle ODAR office for video hearings. We have been told that the Seattle ODAR office is planning to schedule hearings starting as late as 8:00 p.m. on the East Coast, which would be 5:00 Pacific time.
We have not heard any explanation for why these hearings would be scheduled so late in the day. I do not know if this is merely a peculiar aberration or a sign of things to come, but ODAR is going to some trouble to arrange for personnel to work this late. I do know that there have been some capacity problems in midday on the network through which Social Security does video hearings.
Somehow, the idea of night court has a declasse feel to it. Besides being inconvenient for the claimant's attorney, the symbolism strikes me as inappropriate.
We have not heard any explanation for why these hearings would be scheduled so late in the day. I do not know if this is merely a peculiar aberration or a sign of things to come, but ODAR is going to some trouble to arrange for personnel to work this late. I do know that there have been some capacity problems in midday on the network through which Social Security does video hearings.
Somehow, the idea of night court has a declasse feel to it. Besides being inconvenient for the claimant's attorney, the symbolism strikes me as inappropriate.
I guess ALJs can't get overtime. The contract hearing reporters = well why would they care when they make their highly overpaid fees. And the ves and mes their highly underpaid ones. I'm thinking maybe mes and ves might actually be more apt to sign up and they might actually get more of them volunteering with these weird hours that won't conflict with office hours.
ReplyDeleteyou haven't convinced me it's a bad idea. just a weird one.mostly because I can't figure out why Seattle would have a more favorable caseload than North Carolina.
Unless this was the idea of a judge or 2 who volunteered to do this beyond their normal workload
I think that this would be a wonderful idea. What's the worst that could happen? The waiting time might shrink from 3 years, to a year and a half? I say we go for it!
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