Federal disability retirement law is often a frustrating process. On the one hand, for an attorney, it can be a professionally satisfying area of law to practice because the end result — obtaining a benefit for an individual who has shown long years of loyal service to working for the Federal Government; providing a source of income for a person who has been impacted by a medical condition; reaching a successful conclusion to a process: these factors are always satisfying for a practicing attorney. On the other hand — this is an administrative process; it is an area called, “Administrative Law”, and at least at the initial stages of the process, the Attorney handling such a case is dealing with non-attorneys at the Office of Personnel Management.
In other areas of practice, there is often an “equality of competence” (presumably), where attorneys compete or engage in adversarial battle with other attorneys. With Disability Retirement Law, however, the “Disability Specialist” at the Office of Personnel Management often has absolutely no clue as to the current laws governing disability retirement. They simply apply a template and, if a specific case goes outside of that preconceived “template”, then the OPM Representative will often deny the case.
Now, in all fairness, most of the people at OPM have a fair idea of the current law, and more importantly, are open to being informed, educated and persuaded by an attorney that a particular case, with its various wrinkles (and all cases have their unique wrinkles), should be approved because of compliance with a particular statute, a relevant case-law, or a particular regulatory statement. In some particular cases, however, when an OPM representative makes a decision based upon complete ignorance of the prevailing disability retirement laws, one can only throw up one’s hands, and hope that the Reconsideration Specialist will have greater knowledge — or, at the very least, is open to being educated on the proper application of the law.
Sincerely,
Robert R. McGill, Esquire
Filed under: OPM Disability Actors - The OPM Representatives, OPM Disability Administrative Law (Statutory and Non-Statutory Law), The Job of a Federal Disability Attorney | Tagged: Administrative Law, administrative or adversarial process, case law citation in federal disabilities cases, disability retirement at the USPS, disability retirement for SSA employees, disability retirement with the federal government, equality of competence, federal disability law, federal government disability, federal workers comp, FERS disability retirement, FERS medical retirement, filing for OPM disability retirement, lack of proper administrative review, limited duty assignments united states postal service, misinterpretation or misapplication of OPM disability law, misstatements as basis for denial, Office of Personnel Management (OPM), OPM clerks, OPM Disability Specialist, statutory requirements in OPM disability law | 1 Comment »