Senior Attorney productivity

Like other DW's and ALJ's, Sr Atty's are under pressure for "productivity". This should include quality as well as quantity, but there is no question that upper management and Congress has been much more concerned with quantity for many years. However, the Wall Street Journal and some members of Congress are now "shocked" that some ALJ's have taken the push for numbers to an an extreme. It is not known whether this will result in a serious push for "quality", but it is certainly a warning to ALJ's and Sr. Atty's that being an outlier in the percentage of favorable decisions is a risk, especially if the decisions are especially thin on rationale.

My advice to Sr Atty's, keep working hard, but be sure to cover the bases in your decisions. Don't give any critic the chance to say we are "paying everybody" just to generate numbers.