FERS & CSRS Disability Retirement Cases Before an MSPB Judge

When putting on a disability retirement case under FERS or CSRS before the Merit Systems Protection Board, it is essential that an applicant (if unrepresented) and the attorney (if represented, the applicant need not participate in any Prehearing Conference, but will obviously encounter the Judge during the Telephone Hearing) listens to the Administrative Judge during [...]

Reflections Upon Law, Arête (ἀρετή), and the Banality of Life

The practice of law is a peculiar exercise in combining the theoretical with the practical; in that sense, perhaps it is an anomaly in that the two disciplines rarely intersect, and the great divide between a conceptual discipline and a practical one is defied by the ‘practice’ of law. Indeed, the very phrase ‘practice of [...]

Merit Systems Protection Board: A Different Animal

When an individual has attempted to obtain disability retirement under FERS or CSRS on his/her own, but has failed at both the initial stage as well as the Reconsideration Stage, while it is true that a Hearing before an Administrative Judge at the MSPB is to be heard de novo (meaning, heard “anew” and where [...]

Poetry, the Cab Driver, the Moon and a Life Well-Lived

As one grows older, hopefully the wisdom one possesses reaches an equivalency to the extent of gray in one’s hair, or the depth of wrinkles; and perhaps that wisdom is expanded in direct correlation to the differing breadth of perspectives and stories which one has encountered and collected throughout the years. By ‘stories’, I don’t [...]

Common Mistakes in Filing for CSRS & FERS Disability Retirement III

Words are peculiar animals; they are meant to convey meanings through stringing together, creating conceptual models, images, descriptive thoughts. Thus, one would think that the greater quantity of words would lead to a greater level of thoughts conveyed, images created, etc. However, what often happens (a commond mistake found in unrepresented applicants who file for [...]

Common Mistakes in Filing for CSRS & FERS Disability Retirement II

Always emphasize quality over quantity of medical records & reports. A common mistake often made by unrepresented individuals is that he or she will ship off to the Office of Personnel Management a large packet of medical records, bills, appointment sheets, raw blood test results, etc. A potential applicant is always wise to try and [...]

Common Mistakes in Filing for CSRS & FERS Disability Retirement

There are multiple mistakes often made when an unrepresented individual files for disability retirement under FERS & CSRS. One such common mistake is the very presentation of an application packet that is presented to the Office of Personnel Management. Often, when an individual has a disability retirement application denied at the First Stage, and has [...]

OPM Disability Retirement: Stating It Effectively

Whether an attorney is necessary at the initial stages of filing for OPM Disability Retirement is a question which each individual must answer. One thing is clear, however; there are very few cases where a disability retirement application is “clear-cut” based upon the medical evidence. The reviewing personnel at the Office of Personnel Management are [...]

FERS & CSRS Disability Retirement Applicants

FERS and CSRS disability retirement applicants are especially “vulnerable” because of the inherently precarious financial situation that an applicant often finds him/herself in, and often desperate need for an approval from the Office of Personnel Management. Most of the cases that I represent are approved at the First Stage; upon a denial, however, it is [...]

Story for the Day

We are sitting in front of a fire; outside, ice covers the trees; snow has fallen. In days past, white was the color of purity; but then minds greater than poetry analyzed such metaphors and determined that white was not a color at all, but the absence of color; that black was the collection of [...]