Hey federal decision writers

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Thank you for the explanation. What is the potential potential of the decision writer? If you can get to GS-15, that appears to be a good job with work-life balance.

promotion potential

[Anonymous]

The attorney decision writer job at SSA is a GS 9-11-12 ladder in the hearing offices. GS-9 would be law clerk, GS-11 a new attorney, and GS-12 an experienced attorney. You typically start as a GS-11 and are promoted to GS-12 after a year. Promotion potential is limited. You would need to compete for a GS-13 as a senior attorney advisor or group supervisor, but those positions are relatively rare. You might be able to become a hearing office director (HOD) at GS-14 one day. Still, the writer job is a foot in the door to the federal government and you might be able to transfer to another federal agency after a couple of years there. SSA hires many new attorneys, such as recent law school graduates, but it also hires experienced attorneys for the writer job, such as those wanting work-life balance.

There is the potential to one day become an Administrative Law Judge at the agency and the salary would be comparable to a GS-15, but you’d likely need a background in litigation to make that happen. Attorneys with litigation experience can join SSA as a decision writer to gain knowledge of agency culture and administrative law that might be helpful in becoming a judge, but that is a long shot and I wouldn’t take the job with that in mind.

There are other federal decision writer jobs that have more promotion potential (GS-13, GS-14) where you are still a writer such as the BVA.

[Anonymous]

Does anyone know the process know for hiring at bva for an Aa? They had me take a writing test before I had an interview. Still no formal interview after the writing test (2 weeks) I

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Does anyone know the process know for hiring at bva for an Aa? They had me take a writing test before I had an interview. Still no formal interview after the writing test (2 weeks) I

Don't worry, two weeks is nothing when it comes to the federal hiring process. Keep in mind that BVA hires hundreds of attorneys every year so your writing test is one of many waiting to be reviewed. Give it a few more weeks and if you don't hear anything, followup with the agency HR contact. Don't despair if you don't get hired for this hiring wave, as there are several mass hiring waves each and every year.

Before you accept an offer of employment, I encourage you to click on the link below to learn more about working conditions at BVA (the link takes you to a union conducted survey of 400 Board attorneys).

https://documentcloud.adobe.com/link/track?uri=urn%3Aaaid%3Ascds%3AUS%3A4dc55b1b-80ed-4b2c-9e0a-155be961d998#pageNum=1

[Anonymous]

Given the conditions at the Board at the specificity of va law, does any one know how easy/ difficult it is to leave the Board and go to va ogc? Any guidance would be helpful.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Given the conditions at the Board at the specificity of va law, does any one know how easy/ difficult it is to leave the Board and go to va ogc? Any guidance would be helpful.

It is possible to go from the Board to VA OGC. A few of my colleagues have made the transfer to the VA OGC component that defends Board decisions before the U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims. However, don't join the Board with the expectation that you will be able to transfer to VA OGC. In order to be competitive for VA OGC vacancies, you will need work at the Board for approximately 2-3 years. A lot can go wrong in that period. There's a reason why the Board does several mass hiring sprees a year, and that reason is that management has no qualms about removing new attorneys through forced resignations. In fact, management forces dozens of attorneys each year to resign. If management doesn't like you, you may be out of a job in approximately 10 months. You won't be competitive for VA OGC or other federal positions if you have a forced resignation on your record (you must disclose the forced resignation when applying for other federal positions). Moreover, VA OGC doesn't hire all the time, as hiring is dependent on budgetary considerations. In other words, you may have to wait a while for a VA OGC vacancy to open up.

Also, keep in mind that the attorneys at the VA OGC component that defends Board decisions all have very heavy workloads. That position is no walk in the park.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Given the conditions at the Board at the specificity of va law, does any one know how easy/ difficult it is to leave the Board and go to va ogc? Any guidance would be helpful.

It is possible to go from the Board to VA OGC. A few of my colleagues have made the transfer to the VA OGC component that defends Board decisions before the U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims. However, don't join the Board with the expectation that you will be able to transfer to VA OGC. In order to be competitive for VA OGC vacancies, you will need work at the Board for approximately 2-3 years. A lot can go wrong in that period. There's a reason why the Board does several mass hiring sprees a year, and that reason is that management has no qualms about removing new attorneys through forced resignations. In fact, management forces dozens of attorneys each year to resign. If management doesn't like you, you may be out of a job in approximately 10 months. You won't be competitive for VA OGC or other federal positions if you have a forced resignation on your record (you must disclose the forced resignation when applying for other federal positions). Moreover, VA OGC doesn't hire all the time, as hiring is dependent on budgetary considerations. In other words, you may have to wait a while for a VA OGC vacancy to open up.

Also, keep in mind that the attorneys at the VA OGC component that defends Board decisions all have very heavy workloads. That position is no walk in the park.

Just writing to support and supplement what was said here. Shifting to CALG (the VA OGC component that litigates at CAVC) is possible for Board attorneys, but you have to be a high-performer. It is not an escape route for someone who struggled at the Board. In addition, the are upsides and downsides to the OGC. On the downside, there is vastly more work than there was at the Board. It is law firm hours without law firm pay, and you also spend most of your time losing cases which can be depressing. The internal culture at CALG is pretty good and the supervisors are supportive, but CALG is vastly overworked and under resourced with no prospects of that ever changing. In addition, there is almost no career advancement potential at CALG. Traditionally, OGC attorneys capped at GS-14 with a very small number of GS-15 positions whose occupants never leave, so they never open up. This is vastly worse than the Board, where GS-15 and VLJ spots open up regularly. There are also only 2 SES positions in the group, and they are not realistic career goals for anyone, so GS-15 is the most you can realistically hope for and even that you would have to be one of the top performers for years and be super lucky that a spot opened up at the exact right time in your career. For that reason, most OGC attorneys looking for internal career tracking try to go back to the Board as VLJs. That is a viable route and has been done several times (including recently).

The main positive side is that CALG provides a marketable skill set that can realistically be used to transition to non-VA law in all kinds of other places. You will learn the skills of federal appellate litigation, and those are regularly in demand in other parts of government and private practice. So, if you're a Board attorney and you really want to get out of veterans law, moving to CALG for several years is a good way to move towards that goal. If your only goal is internal VA career pathing, personally I would recommend staying at the Board, being a high-performer, and going the usual Sr. Counsel -> VLJ route. Much easier, more reliable, and also maintains a work-life balance.