The Advisor

The Newsletter of the Association of Attorney-Advisors
5510 SW 97^th Avenue
Cooper City, Florida  33328

Jim Hitchcock, President        Gus Martin, Vice President
Anne Shaughnessy, Treasurer   Bob Howard, Secretary

November 2006 

MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT

As usual we appear to be living in “interesting” times at ODAR.  With the budget still up in the air, many questions are on hold.  It is difficult to find much solid information.

The Fed RO program appears to have hired another 30 RO’s for the pilot.  We have not received any information regarding these recruits.  The Fed RO’s have begun to review cases.

The Appeals Council hired a new group of writers including two of our members, Ken & Julia Terry.  Remember, the Appeals Council is not dead under the New Approach; it will just be renamed and restructured.

There is certainly a need for large hirings of ALJ’s and support staff at local ODAR offices, but there is no evidence that this will occur any time soon.

Commissioner Barnhart will be leaving soon.  Michael Astrue has been nominated to replace her.  Mr. Astrue was in SSA’s OGC during the first Bush Administration.  More recently he has been general counsel, CEO and/or a director for various biotech firms.  Andrew Biggs has been nominated for Deputy Commissioner.  Mr. Biggs is currently the Associate Commissioner for the Office of Retirement Policy and previously was a staffer for the Cato Institute who avidly promoted private accounts for Social Security.

Jim Hitchcock

ELECTIONS

Nominations for 2007 Officers in AAA have been received and mirror those of last year. Jim Hitchcock was nominated for President, Gus Martin was nominated for Vice-President, Bob Howard was nominated for Secretary, and Anne Shaughnessy was nominated for treasurer. No other nominations were received. A ballot is attached at the bottom of this newsletter. You can mark your selections, copy and paste them into an e-mail, and send it to me at charles.r.howard@ssa.gov by December 7, 2006.

ADMINISTRATIVE ISSUES

We are currently collecting membership dues for 2007. Dues for regular members are $10.00 per person and dues for associate member are $7.50 per person. Please make your check payable to the Attorney-Advisor’s Association and mail to our Treasurer, Anne Shaughnessy, at the following address by December 31, 2006:

Association of Attorney-Advisors
Anne Shaughnessy, Treasurer
5510 SW 97^th Avenue
Cooper City, FL 33328

CAREER NEWS

The ALJ message boards are beginning to include discussions about a new ALJ class in 2007, but, as always, they report that budgetary issues will be paramount and must be resolved before a class can be selected. As most of you know, SSA is still operating under a Continuing Resolution and personnel decisions are generally not made until a budget is final.

ARTICLE SUBMISSIONS

Pursuant to AAA bylaws, any member can submit an article for inclusion in the newsletter. Anyone interested in submitting their own article in future newsletters can contact an officer.  Please remember, The Advisor is a publication of general circulation.