I'm hearing reports that several hearing offices around the country are now scheduling hearings without first contacting the claimant's attorney. This is contrary to settled practice. The purported goal is to save time. I don't know whether this is something that is supposed to become universal.
This isn't going to work. Contacting attorneys before scheduling hearings wasn't just a matter of courtesy. It was to avoid having to reschedule hearings. If you don't contact attorneys first, you're going to have endless conflicts between hearings scheduled by different Administrative Law Judges (ALJs) and different hearing offices, much less conflicts with various obligations that attorney have with other cases pending before other tribunals much less personal obligations such as those associated with being a parent or medical care. No, using Social Security's online systems to identify conflicts won't work. Often, the attorney of record isn't the attorney who will actually appear for the hearings. Don't blame law firms for this. It happens because the agency refuses to recognize law firms. No, I don't think that having attorneys inform hearing offices of every item on their calendar will work. There's just too many items on anyone's schedule to expect this to work even if hearing offices knew exactly which attorney is supposed to appear at each hearing. I've also found that hearing office employees can be completely unrealistic about time and distance. Too many times I've hearing questions like, "Your hearing in Greenville is at 9:00, so why can't you do a hearing in Raleigh at 10:30?" coming from people who don't realize that it's a hour and a half drive between Greenville and Raleigh.
Rescheduling hearings takes time and leaves blank spots in ALJ schedules. I really, really want to get hearings scheduled as quickly as possible but I don't think this will help. There are practical reasons that Social Security called before scheduling hearings. It doesn't take that much time and it avoids wasting time down the road.
Rescheduling hearings takes time and leaves blank spots in ALJ schedules. I really, really want to get hearings scheduled as quickly as possible but I don't think this will help. There are practical reasons that Social Security called before scheduling hearings. It doesn't take that much time and it avoids wasting time down the road.
I have heard some suggestion that attorneys provide their schedules ahead of time on a routine basis to ODAR to assist in scheduling hearings. Even that has its own problems, but that would certainly be more efficient and effective than this.
ReplyDeleteI know, let's do like they do in the local court. Cattle call the first Monday of the month with 400 attorneys showing up. 160 or so will be scheduled and the rest will return the first Monday of the next month. Once you request a hearing, you should be ready to do it. The hearing is not scheduled for your convenience it is to give the claimant's an opportunity to have their case heard. Your job is to be there and be prepared. Life is hard....
ReplyDeleteThe Metaire, LA ODAR is famous for these games. The Chief ALJ there has a policy of scheduling hearings without calling the attorney's office. This will be often done with less than 30 days notice. The Chief ALJ there has a standing order in the office that he refuses to work with firms on cases. When we inevitably call to request a postponement, they demand to see actual copies of the notices of hearing for each attorney in the firm. Very efficient way of doing things!
ReplyDelete@10:14
ReplyDeleteBeing prepared is not the issue. If you have a hearing before one ODAR, and another one is scheduled at the same time, one will need to be rescheduled. It is not a matter of convenience, it is a matter of physics.
Sounds like rules made by people who never practiced law. Is this really a problem? In my practice ODAR calls wanting to schedule a hearing, we discuss a few dates, select one and then the case is scheduled. This is a solution looking for a problem....
ReplyDeleteNo good deed goes unpunished.
ReplyDeleteI think getting a call ahead of time to schedule hearings is a very thoughtful and reasonable way to do business. I get calls well ahead of time and that way I can center other plans around the hearing schedule. I can't remember the last time I had to have a hearing rescheduled for a schedule conflict.
ReplyDeleteWe offer multiple dates/times for at least two months in a row (two different schedules) before we just schedule a case and tell reps to request a PP. If a rep, especially an attorney with multiple attorneys practicing SS law in the firm, cannot find availability three, now four months out for two months in a row after being offered multiple slots? These reps are literally delaying justice for their clients--remember, this is about REP availability, not claimant availability!--and it sounds like the attorney has too many clients and cannot zealously represent them all.
ReplyDeleteWe found that there's a lot of gloom and doom forecasted by reps when they hear this is coming, but then magically once an ALJ is telling them they have to prove all lawyers in the firm are scheduled somewhere else or on secured leave or something, they manage to show up as scheduled! Just like State Court, imagine that!
The primary ODAR that I deal with has the following procedures: There is one scheduler in the office and 10 ALJs. The scheduler sends an e-mail to all of the Attorneys/Representatives that deal with that office requesting dates of unavailability. That e-mail is sent about 3 to 4 months in advance. The cases are scheduled with 60 to 90 days notice. My hearing schedule is filled through the end of May. The only problems are when one of the other 3 ODARS I deal with schedules over the primary ODAR. In those cases we send a copy of the Notice of Hearing that is dated earlier and request a postponement. For some reason there are few double hearings. There have been glitches, however, such as two hearings scheduled with the same ODAR at the same time with different ALJs or a hearing held in my absence while my wife was in ICU in the hospital. In those situations I urge you to call ODAR, leave or give a message and then put it in writing and file the message electronically in the case file. I recently had a hearing scheduled 100 miles away. I had been ill and the day before my office requested a continuance verbally and in writing. The ALJ's assistant stated that the ALJ was not in the office and that the information would be given to the ALJ. The hearing was at 10:30 a.m. and I had not heard anything by 8:30 a.m. on the day of the hearing. I decided to attempt to drive to the hearing in my weakened physical condition. After I drove 10 minutes my office called and told me that the ALJ's assistant called and the hearing was cancelled. I returned to my home to recuperate. At 9:45 a.m. my office received a call from the ALJ's office stating that the ALJ did not approve the continuance, that the hearing would go on and that I was expected to appear at 10:30 a.m. We called the Chief ALJ of that office and was told he was not in. We also called the Regional Chief ALJ and apparently they got involved. Several days later I received a Show Cause Notice. I also received a Notice of Hearing rescheduling the case. I responded to the Show Cause Notice and I intend to appear. This was the first time in 44 years of law practice and 5,800 ALJ Hearings that I requested a continuance because of illness. I guess we are not allowed to be ill.
ReplyDeleteWe are being to experience this in our area and have already had to request several postponements as all of our attorneys are in scheduled hearings with other ODARS.
ReplyDeleteI have heard from colleagues that at least one ALJ is requesting that the firm send another one of its attorneys to cover a hearing even when there is only one attorney listed on the 1696. Wht if there is only one attorney in the firm that does SS claims? I am not sure how an ALJ believes they have the power to force a claimant to obtain a different attorney other than the one they have appointed.
Like everything else ODAR tries to do, this will only cause more problems than the imaginary problems it is supposed to be fixing. Things will eventually find there way back to a reasonable way of doping things.
Getting another attorney involved, even one from the same firm, is not practical and reasonable since only the main rep can review the electronic file. Some ODAR offices are no longer putting the file on a disc if the claimant is represented.
ReplyDeleteLife is hard 10:14. We know you know snowflake.
ReplyDeleteLooking at ERE doesn't help--I just had CSprings schedule me for a hearing on a date for which I'd already cleared a hearing with StLouis NHC, but NHC hadn't yet posted it to the system. So then you get the battle of the ODARs.
ReplyDeleteI haven't used ERE for scheduling but it is essential for reviewing the file. How can you effectively represent anyone if you don't know what's in the file?
ReplyDeleteThere is a scheduling "pilot project" underway in the St. Louis, Creve Coeur and Columbia, Missouri ODARs. It was initiated by the regional chief in Kansas City. It began in August, 2016. Columbia does the scheduling for all three offices. We have to send an email to a specific person in Columbia four months in advance with our unavailable dates. They have access to our hearing calendars with all ODARs. They select the date and time of the hearing without calling us. We get 3.5 to 4 months notice. They do not schedule us in more than one ODAR on the same day.
ReplyDeleteIn the beginning we had a problem with getting more hearings set in some weeks than we could prepare and get out other work done. That got worked out. They are willing to work with us on number of hearings per day and per week.
This works for our firm because we only do Social Security. Firms who practice in other areas can notify the schedulers if they have commitments in other courts but only if they know about them for months in advance. If not, the same problems arise described by other commenters.
We practice mostly in Creve Coeur and St. Louis. The wait to get a hearing in the suburban office is 21 months. It is 24 months downtown. There is a serious problem rescheduling hearings if an emergency happens. Getting a new date would take another 4 to 6 months. I missed my mother-in-law's funeral a couple of months ago because of this. She lived in a rural area about 6 hours drive away. The funeral was on a Tuesday. I had hearings on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, so I would have had to drive the day before and after the funeral, getting out of my hearings for all three days. The other two lawyers in our office had their own hearings and could not cover all of mine. I could not make my clients wait up to another six months so I stayed here and went to the hearings.
The RCALJ is coming to St. Louis next month to meet with all the reps in the area. I hope we can work out these problems but it remains to be seen. she has been willing to exchange ideas and concerns.
This is just speculation but I think that this is an anomaly. Most of the country has gone from a 20 day notice of hearing to a 75 day of notice. This is a huge problem for most offices. Region has been pushing that all of these cases after April 30 must be scheduled with 75 days notice--an extremely difficult task if you have to call scores of lawyers.
ReplyDeleteMy guess is that in order to meet this arbitrary rule, offices have been scheduling without contacting reps. Yes, lots of cases will need to be postponed. But the local offices can tell Region that they succeeded in scheduling those cases 75 days in advance. Hopefully, things will return to normal now.
Metairie, LA doesn't even provide the courtesy of allowing our office to provide schedules of representatives. It just schedules, and although this will change with the 75 day rule going nationwide, sometimes with less than 30 days notice. They waste so much time demanding proof from us of the fact our reps have other hearings. We provide that proof, then that isn't good enough. I just don't get the logic other than the HOCALJ is on a power trip. We don't like postponing hearings. We want to get these clients their hearings and decisions as soon as possible so they aren't calling in asking for updates, etc. constantly.
ReplyDeleteThis is but one, of many, examples of why ODAR Management is so incompetent. At 8:39, I have no doubt the HOCALJ is on a "Power trip." I just love the way ODAR Management treats professionals, i.e., claimants Attorneys and Reps, like 3rd graders by asking for documentation why one cannot attend a hearing which was scheduled without even consulting the Attorney/Rep first. These people appear to have no skills, ability or training to manage an Agency like SSA/ODAR, but yet they occupy the highest levels in the Agency in vast numbers. Why is this? Promoting like-minded favorites over and over. Unfortunately, these nut cases treat their own ALJ's, Attorneys, and other employees with the same disrespectful conduct, i.e., like third graders.
ReplyDeleteIt's fun to watch this overload of inept top Management all trying to cling onto the jobs they perform so incompetently with the new Administration. What's worse is the likelihood the numb skulls will do just that. Sad.
2:47
ReplyDeleteSAA 27+ is so completely anti-mgmt. that she fails to recognize that pretty much every forum in the country schedules without consulting attorneys (only letting attorneys be off the grid for two weeks of secured leave a year) first and that we are talking about the availability of third party folks getting in the way of unfortunate, poor claimants getting a hearing timely. Sheesh, let's just do what reps want and what is in reps' interest and not worry with getting these unfortunate souls a hearing as quickly as we can.
Make it simple. Request and adjournment and withdraw if it's not granted. Claimant goes to hearing and says I want a rep. Hearing is adjourned and rep is rehired. I'm sure judges will love having even more hearings postponed as a result of their power trip.
ReplyDelete@2:57
ReplyDelete2:47, or as you put it, SA-27. At least I am not a kiss ass management shill like you. One thing I do know after 27+ years as an ODAR SA and AA, is how incredibly stupid and idiotic it is to schedule hearings without first calling claimants Attorneys or Reps.
Also, I am not anti-management, but I am opposed to the majority of incompetent, inept individuals who purport to run the Agency; the promotion of like minded individuals to join their inner circle; and their persistent refusal to acknowledge they, and their non-sensical policies are solely responsible for the massive backlog, and pushing the Agency further into the ground each day.
One would reasonably believe if these individuals are as intelligent and enlightened as they think they are to occupy the top positions in the Agency, they would at least have the sense to voluntarily walk away with their heads down in a hall of shame. But these individuals are not reasonable, and are far too concerned with their own personal interest, bloated salaries and bonuses to voluntarily walk away and do what is best for the Agency.
FIRED
ReplyDelete@9:22
DeleteNo, NOT FIRED, you idiot!