A Brief History of the Association of Attorney-Advisors
In the summer of 1993, Edward Zanaty, then an Attorney-Advisor in the Birmingham, Alabama ODAR, suggested the establishment of a professional association to help attorneys network within ODAR.[1] The founding members were Danny Stewart, James Yealy, George Callen, Ansley Rowell, Mary Helmer, Renee Blackmon-Hagler and Carl Smith. They each contributed $25.00 and on September 23, 1993, Danny Stewart opened a checking account in the name of the Association.
Mary Helmer was informally elected President of the Association and Danny was Treasurer. September 21, 1993 the original members sent a solicitation letter to about 30 other Attorney-Advisors, mostly in Region IV. By the winter of 1993, the Association of Attorney-Advisors was granted tax exempt status by the IRS as a Section 501(c)(6) professional association not engaged in political or union activities. It published its first newsletter. There were 22 dues paying members.
In December 1993 the first formal elections were held. Cam Oetter (Macon, GA ODAR) was elected President; Danny Stewart (then in Birmingham, AL ODAR, now in Dallas, TX [North] ODAR) Treasurer; and Roland Reed (Nashville, TN ODAR) Secretary. Membership grew to 50 members by August 1994. Rumors regarding “Redesign” were flying and Attorney-Advisors were concerned about their future. In the fall of 1994, elections were held for 1995 officers. Rebecca Brown (now Rebecca Sartor) (then in Tupelo, MS ODAR, later HOD in Roanoke, VA ODAR and currently raising her son) was elected President; Danny Stewart continued as Treasurer; and Jim Hitchcock (Knoxville, TN ODAR) was elected Secretary.
In 1995, membership continued to grow. More rumors regarding “Redesign” were flying and Attorney-Advisors were still concerned about their future. The Senior Attorney-Advisor program rolled out in 1995. The positions were announced in Region IV in April, but full implementation was delayed and was not complete until late that year. While there was much rejoicing over the Sr. Attorney roll-out, there was continuing concern. There was considerable resistance to the program in Baltimore, in a number of local hearing offices, by some Regional Chief Administrative Law Judges, and by the Association of Administrative Law Judges. The top officers at Redesign repeated the mantra, “the Senior Attorney-Advisor program is only a ‘temporary’ initiative, the Redesign proposals are to be ‘permanent’ changes’.
The Association of Attorney-Advisors sent proposals to SSA management and Congress, 1.) to make clear that disability determination is a legal issue and that adjudicators should have a legal education; 2.) that writers should have a legal education or at least significant legal training; and 3.) that specific experience in Social Security law should give Administrative Law Judge applicants “extra credit”.
The 1996 officers were John Hutto (Hattiesburg, MS ODAR) President; Curt Watkins (then in Nashville, TN ODAR, now in Lexington, KY ODAR) our first Vice President, Karen Jackson (Lexington, KY ODAR) Treasurer; and Jim Hitchcock (Knoxville, TN ODAR) Secretary. In January 1996, there were 77 members in the Association, many from ODAR offices outside Region IV. 1996 saw the first in-person meeting of Association members in Biloxi, MS. Over a dozen members attended. The Adjudication Officer pilot rolled out. We continued grassroots lobbying to management and Congress, trying to convince them that eliminating the AO and expanding the Senior Attorney-Advisor program would be a much more effective use of resources. We submitted letter after letter explaining, in detail, how the average Senior Attorney-Advisor was at least twice as productive as the average Adjudication Officer, and how full implementation of the AO would cripple productivity in other areas of the process by drawing away over a thousand experienced personnel to AO positions.
Despite management contentions to the contrary, the Sr. Atty. and AO programs competed throughout 1996 and 1997. I believe the numbers supported our contentions that the Sr. Attorney program dramatically outperformed the AO. Unfortunately, thanks in part to intentionally skewed statistics in other reports and actions directed at sabotaging the Sr. Atty. program, the upper levels of SSA management refused to see any validity to our position.[2] The Adjudication Officer kept getting renewed and the Sr. Atty. was repeatedly altered in ways that had the ultimate result of lessening its effectiveness.[3]
John Hutto and Karen Jackson were re-elected for the 1997 term. Wendy Pierce was elected Vice President and Ed Gibbons (then in Savannah, GA ODAR, now HOD in Eugene, OR ODAR) took over as Secretary. The Association was invited to Falls Church for a meeting with ODAR’s top management. John Hutto and Rebecca Brown represented the Association. Associate Commissioner Rita Geier, Bill Taylor (head of the Appeals Council), Chief Judge Boyer, Harold Davis of NASSSA (the supervisory attorney association) and Jim Hill, President of NTEU, Chapter 224 attended. After this meeting, John and Becky met with Kim Hildred, a senior staffer of the House Social Security Subcommittee, and Steve Seale, Chief Counsel for the Senate Majority Leader, Trent Lott.
The Association of Attorney-Advisors reached a milestone in 1997. We received official recognition as a professional organization. An August 6, 1997 letter from Associate Commissioner Rita Geier, confirmed that Acting Commissioner John J. Callahan had approved our request for recognition. Membership approached 100 members. The 1998 elected officers were Rebecca Brown, President; Karen Asard (New Haven, CT ODAR) Vice President, Karen Jackson (Lexington, KY ODAR) Treasurer; and Jim Hitchcock (Knoxville, TN ODAR) Secretary. Much to Karen Asard’s surprise, Rebecca was appointed Acting Regional Attorney in Region VI, shortly after the election and resigned as President. Karen showed valor and tenacity serving as President for the remainder of 1998.
I was elected President for the 1999 term along with Juan Flores (Raleigh, NC ODAR) Vice President, Karen Asard (New Haven, CT ODAR) Treasurer; and Richie Whitten (Florence, AL ODAR) Secretary. Karen and Richie both resigned for personal reasons early in 1999. Denise Copeland (Birmingham, AL ODAR) Treasurer, and Betty Dameron (Greenville, SC ODAR) Secretary, were elected to finish the 1999 term. HPI reared its ugly head during 1999. While HPI was initially greeted with hope, those hopes were soon dashed as details of implementation were announced. The Association of Attorney-Advisors, and many others within ODAR, repeatedly advised SSA management that the implementation plan for HPI was grievously flawed and would cause more problems than it solved. The Association also submitted these suggestions to Congress, NTEU, AALJ and AFGE. As we all know and GAO later pointed out, SSA management, in particular management above OCALJ, repeatedly and pointedly ignored that advice. Full implementation of HPI was expedited in spite of all the warnings.
The 2000 officers of the Association were Jim Hitchcock (Knoxville, TN ODAR) President, Barb McAdam (Greenville, SC ODAR) Vice President, Denise Copeland (Birmingham, AL ODAR) Treasurer; and Betty Dameron (Greenville, SC ODAR) Secretary. We continued to lobby management with suggestions. We had an in-person meeting of Association members in conjunction with the February 2000 CLE on Social Security law sponsored by ICLE in Georgia. About fifteen members attended this Atlanta meeting. Our entire team of officers had a brief informal meeting with Chief Administrative Law Judge Chuck Boyer at the seminar. Barbara McAdam became a manager under HPI later that year, and resigned as Vice President. Three candidates ran to fill the vacancy. Lisa Hall (Paducah, KY ODAR) got her start as an Association officer completing the 2001 term as Vice President after winning the special election. HPI implementation continued. The organization continued to grow to 146 active members. In addition to letters to management we submitted a “written statement in lieu of testimony” to the House Subcommittee on Social Security regarding the need for additional attorneys at ODAR and other issues.
After our first contested election for President, Betty Dameron (Greenville, SC ODAR), became President for the 2001 term. Lisa Hall (Paducah, KY ODAR), continued as Vice President and Denise Copeland (Birmingham, AL ODAR) Treasurer. Thad Hess (Greenville, SC ODAR) was elected Secretary. The first full year of the HPI debacle continued. We continued to send letters encouraging management to make better use of their legal staff and presented a written statement to the House Subcommittee.
Officers elected for the 2002 term were Lisa Hall (Paducah, KY ODAR), President; John Hutto (Hattiesburg, MS ODAR) Vice President, Judith Bentley (Paducah, KY ODAR) Treasurer; and Jim Hitchcock (Knoxville, TN ODAR) Secretary. This group was reelected to serve the 2003 term.
Officers elected for the 2004 term were, John Hutto (Hattiesburg, MS ODAR) President; Ken Terry (Jacksonville, FL ODAR) Vice President, Denise Pasvantis (Ft. Lauderdale, FL ODAR) Treasurer; and Jim Hitchcock (Knoxville, TN ODAR) Secretary. In February, the Association of Attorney-Advisors set up its first hospitality suite in conjunction with the annual ICLEGA seminar on Social Security law in Atlanta. John Hutto and Jim Hitchcock met Commissioner Barnhart at the seminar and arranged a telephone conference with Mary Chatel, a top official involved in fleshing out the details of the Commissioner’s “New Approach”. In June, Jim Hitchcock met with Associate Commissioner Thurmond in Falls Church and presented the Association’s position on the “New Approach”, Administrative Law Judge selection and again argued that providing signatory authority to Senior Attorney-Advisors would markedly boost overall ODAR productivity at very low cost. The Association also argued in writing that the Reviewing Officials would need the kind of experience possessed by Attorney-Advisors and that recruiting of new Attorney-Advisors during the period before implementation was needed to assure continuity within ODAR and a larger pool of experienced candidates.
Officers elected for the 2005 term were Jim Hitchcock (Knoxville, TN ODAR), President; Ken Terry (Jacksonville, FL ODAR) Vice President, Denise Pasvantis (Ft. Lauderdale, FL ODAR) Treasurer; and John Hutto (Hattiesburg, MS ODAR) Secretary. Officers elected for the 2006 and 2007 terms were Jim Hitchcock (Knoxville, TN ODAR), President; Gus Martin (Washington, DC ODAR) Vice President, Anne Shaughnessy (Ft. Lauderdale, FL ODAR) Treasurer; and Bob Howard (Knoxville, TN ODAR), Secretary.
Ignoring advice from the Association and others SSA opened the pilot Reviewing Official office to work on Region One cases in late 2006. The office itself was in the Falls Church/Baltimore area, no travel or moving reimbursement was offered; over one third of the initial RO’s were from outside ODAR; the vast majority of selectee’s from local ODAR offices had been fairly recent hires; and almost all the supervisors selected were from the Appeals Council or other Falls Church/Baltimore positions.[4]
Jim Hitchcock
This ended Ed’s involvement with the Association. He was selected as an Administrative Law Judge [he is currently the HOCALJ in Birmingham] that same summer. He did not participate beyond the initial discussion phase.
SSA management’s official position from 1995 through 1998 was that the AO was on track for implementation and the Sr. Atty. program was just a stop-gap, temporary measure. This was in spite of the fact that:
a) AO productivity never quite reached a rate of one case per AO per day. One case per day would result in about 250 cases reviewed and maybe 50 o-t-r decisions per AO per year. It would therefore take over 2000 AO’s to review 550,000 cases.
b) 1997 SAA productivity (with less than 500 Senior Attorney-Advisors) was at a pace to review about 250,000 cases [over 2 per day], with about 50,000 o-t-r decisions.
c) SAA decisional accuracy also exceeded that of the AO’s according to Appeals Council review results.
In 1998 and 1999 major alterations alterations of the the Senior Attorney-Advisor program included reducing the number of Sr. Atty’s from about 500 to about 270; changing the review function from part-time to full-time to part-time; and rotating personnel in the positions over very short periods.