Attorney Representation for OPM Disability Claims: Steps of Deliberation

Steps of deliberation must be taken to accomplish anything.  By deliberation is meant: A plan based upon knowledge; actual progress towards a goal; a recognition of the strengths and weaknesses of a case; and the application of any and all advantages which can be engaged.

Obtaining a Federal Disability Retirement annuity requires those steps of deliberation: Knowledge of the process; steps toward the end-goal; assessment of the legal criteria and their applicability; citing of past case-laws which possess persuasive influence in arguing your case.

Consult with a FERS Disability Lawyer who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law, and begin actually moving forward in the steps of deliberation which will result in a successful outcome.

For, it is those first steps of deliberation which determine the course of one’s future, and Federal Disability Retirement is ultimately nothing more, and nothing less, than securing one’s future by stabilizing your financial outlook in a retirement you have worked so hard to obtain.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Disability Retirement Benefits: The Inside View

There is the “outside” perspective as opposed to the “inside view”, and that is the mistake people make in various sectors of life: The “outsider” believes that, from a position and perspective of detachment and therefore objectivity, he or she is able to better assess, evaluate and analyze the event, situation or conditions experienced than by those on the “inside”.

By contrast, the “insider” views the outsider with suspicion, contending that he or she has no idea about the experiences and existential difficulties faced by the insider, and that a detached, objective viewpoint which fails to take into consideration the subjective, “personal” side of things misses the essential point of the issue.

It is the tension which exists between the townspeople and the “out-of-towner”; the one who lives in a community as opposed to the renter or investor; or of the person who drives around the neighborhood admiring the green lawns, the peaceful nature and the tranquility of a community, hoping to one day purchase a home there without knowing the problems inherent — say, that the water is contaminated or that there has been a rash of burglaries on the rise in recent years.

How does one break the invisible wall between the inside view and the outside perspective?  When does the demarcation between the two disappear?  Do numbers of years living within a community determine whether an outsider becomes an insider?

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are considering preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application because of a medical condition which has come to a critical point where the Federal or Postal worker can no longer perform one or more of the basic elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, it often “feels” like one has all of a sudden become an “outsider” again — not only from one’s own agency or the Postal Service, but moreover, because of the complexity of the administrative procedures and bureaucratic morass of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management — of the sense that the whole process is strange and detached.

Consulting with a FERS Attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law is a good first step in bridging the gap that widens when first encountering that feeling, in order to get an “inside view” of what it takes to prepare, formulate and file an effective Federal Disability Retirement application.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire
OPM Disability Retirement Attorney

 

OPM Medical Retirement under FERS: Castles in the air

Is it the same idea as Cervantes’ Don Quixote who charges at the wind mills?  Or of Don McLean’s soulful lyrics when he wrote, “And if she asks you why you can tell her that I told you, That I’m tired of Castles in the Air.”?

Is there a difference between dreams and visions realized, and those that remain as castles in the air?  Are such unrealized castles merely the childish remnants that were left behind within the bundled laughter of grown-ups who saw the folly of youth, or are they they vestiges of frustrations discarded because, when we “grow up”, we realize that reality doesn’t quite share the optimism of youth’s unfettered vision?

Whatever the origin, wherever the spark, it is important to preserve a semblance of a dream, even if never realized.  The “dungeon” is its antonym, where all such dreams drain because the lowest point of any location is where the water flows and the desolation of a desert abounds.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition such that the medical condition prevents the Federal or Postal employee from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, it may well be that castles no longer exist in the air or elsewhere; that the medical condition itself has become the “reality” that one must deal with, and castles — in the air, on the ground, or somewhere far away — is a luxury one cannot afford to even consider.

And filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management may be the farthest thing from childhood dreams of what you saw yourself achieving; but in the end, it is the best option available precisely because it frees you from the workplace harassment, embarrassment and resentment where work is no longer compatible with your medical conditions; and as for those castles in the air?

They may still be there once you can focus upon and regain your health; for it is the dream even unrealized that allows for human creativity to spawn and spread, but the pain of a chronic medical condition is what makes of us all the Don Quixote who charges at harmless windmills.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Employee Disability Retirement Benefits: Threads

They are fragile and subject to being snapped; yet, we rely upon them to hold together the fabric of so many things, both in practical terms and in more nuanced settings of conceptual constructs cloaked in figurative speech.

As in Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited, that invisible thread that gently tugs despite isolation, renunciation and attribution of apostasy in the chaos of cultural confusion; or of the woven cloth where thousands in aggregate intersecting patterns creates the strength of multitudes where the single entity would snap upon the breath of a dragon’s snore.  Or, in a conceptual, literary sense, of thoughts and ideas weaving throughout, intersecting and inextricably interconnected with other major themes, of supportive quality and subchapters in reinforcing the main paradigm of a narrative in work.

Threads combine to strengthen; in their singularity, they are the arteries that course through one’s body and give life to an otherwise inert functionality of inoperable means, and allows for its almost invisible presence to dominate beyond its capacity to remain quantitatively anonymous despite its qualitative force of influence.  On a spool, amassed in its collective consolidation, its unique distinctiveness can be identified by color and hue; yet, pull a line of it, perhaps in inches, feet or even a yard, and only by squinting in the full refracted light of day can you discern the difference between that and another.

Thus as we enter into the millennium of future woes do we rely more and more upon the threads that hold up the fragile and ever tenuous spirits of malevolence, like the mistaken times in our own closet when Pandora’s box was unceremoniously allowed to release those skeletons we so deftly hid in the cellars of our private lives.

The threads we have woven, that are the inseparable fabric of our inner lives and outer layers of concealing veils; and yet we take them for granted, no matter the consequences of wrapping dreams and hopes within the fragile confines of the softness wrapped in the baby carriage left teetering on the cliff’s edge.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers considering filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, the applicability and relevance of threads is twofold:  First, remember to always weave in a reinforcing manner, the repetitive value of the themes documented involving one’s medical conditions throughout the applicant’s Statement of Disability as reflected on SF 3112A, to reiterate those specific elements of incompatibility between the medical condition and the positional duties; and second, recognize that the figurative threads of life are those that need listening to, as symptoms of health conditions once ignored, now weaving through the very fabric of one’s daily life.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal & Postal Disability Retirement: Designing a different biography

Each of us has one, but we know not what it states; for, it is what is written and carried by someone else, and not from ourselves.  Yes, yes, we also have an “autobiography”, as well – a narrative of how we see ourselves, in what manner, of what form, in what scintillating and scandalous light.  But it is the collective viewpoints of all whom we have encountered that comprise, constitute and in the compendium of the aggregate, tell the story of “that person” – you.

What would you gather if you went about to all family members, friends, relations and relatives, and to a lesser extent neighbors and acquaintances, whether close or distant, and interviewed each as to the narrative they have about you; collect them into a coherent whole and arrange them into a comprehensible amalgamation for self-reflective, unpublished anonymity?

It would likely be surprising, with tidbits of disconcerting salaciousness – not necessarily involving any vice, but if honesty were to be an unequivocal mandate in the responses to each query, it is likely that one would be taken aback by the responses received, not only in content and substance of answers, but from whence the source of information came.

Would we, if given the opportunity, begin to design a different biography in response to the amassing of such a narrative?  Or, like most people, would we merely engage in defensive self-justification, cutting off relations, reacting with anger and disappointment, and like a child without remorse, regret from wisdom or any greater understanding than the idiot savant who can mimic brilliance from learned behaviors, sit glumly with self-pity and blame those who provided their honest opinion and perspective, and continue on in the same mold as before?

Designing a different biography requires, at a minimum, a capacity to still process information for the intended purpose of alteration of behavior; and like the metamorphosis depicted by Kafka, there are few who have the self-reflective capacity in order to initiate that which cannot be comprehended by an ego which refuses to change.  What chance, then, do we have for redemption?

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition requires designing a different biography for a future event (becoming a Federal Disability Retirement annuitant) because of a present circumstance of altering issues (a medical condition that has arisen, worsened or become exacerbated over time, such that preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management becomes a necessity), the concept of designing a different biography may require an honest assessment and evaluation of one’s physical and mental capacity, what the requirements of one’s Federal or Postal job entails, and when the time is ripe to consider initiating the long, arduous and complex process of considering the submission of a Federal Disability Retirement application.

In the end, designing a different biography always requires a moment of self-reflection – something more complicated than editing our own unsolicited autobiography.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

 

Medical Retirement for Federal Employees: Day after day

Is monotony a negative trait?  How about consistency?  What is it in life that we strive for, search out and look under stones and around corners?  Is it possible that the life we already have, live by and daily “just do” is the one that is fated, meant to be, and of a satisfactory contentment such that change and disruption would be an unwelcome alteration?  Why is it that much of our time is given to complaining and picking at dissatisfaction, and it is only when unwanted intercessions suddenly turn things upside down, create a tumult and travail of circumstances, that we then suddenly “appreciate” the simple things in life?

Day after day, we enjoy the monotony of our circumstances, until one day we are hit with a medical condition.  Things change; stuff happens; unwelcomed interventions are a part of life, and make for a transcendence from the staid and stodgy; and then we wish we were back to the day after day.

Medical conditions have a way of doing that – of forcing an appreciation for things simple when we complained of boredom and the loss of excitement.  Things we once took for granted – of being able to sit for a time without the distractibility of pain; of giving and receiving a hug without wincing; of being able to focus and concentrate on a book, an article or even a few sentences without becoming overwhelmed by pure and profound exhaustion and fatigue; those simple things in life that once brought joy, now a wistful memory of remembrances past, projected exponentially into a future unknown.

Will we ever be able to recapture that which we seem to have lost?

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are suffering from a medical condition, such that the medical condition no longer allows for the day after day monotony of performing the essential elements of one’s Federal position, preparing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be filed with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, may be the best option available in an effort to recapture that once-monotonous life of drudgery and dreariness that you so long for.

“Count your blessings”; “Appreciate what you already have”; “Don’t complain; enjoy”; they were all considered inane pearls of forgotten wisdom, but when a medical condition hits us, the truth underlying each tends to nudge us towards being a better person for it.  Filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits won’t make you rich; but then, what has wealth got to do with it when you don’t even have your health?  Filing for Federal Disability Retirement is, instead, a means to another end – to attain a place where you can attend to your medical conditions and begin to travel the road back to where you can be bored day after day.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Disability Retirement under FERS/CSRS: Perfect lives

Where are they?  Beyond Platonic Forms and heavenly orbs where the golden dust sparingly sprinkled from the wings of angels in flight, do perfect lives exist and, if so, where?  We can suspend disbelief and fantasize of celebrities and the lives of Wall Street wolves with their mansions, beautiful bodies and facial grimaces so tightened by plastic surgery as to make smiling an exertion of monumental phenomena; but, in the end, we all realize that the pinnacle of human achievement is but another endeavor of human fallacy, and never approaching the omniscience of an Aristotelian Unmoved Mover.

If we posit that perfect lives do not exist, then does that vanquish the argument for perfection even of relevance in conceptual or hypothetical argumentation?  If that, then why strive for betterment at all, if there is no standard to which one should attempt to reach?  If everything is merely relative, how can we compare a relativity devoid of standards upon a non-existent spectrum between good, better and best?

Perfection, of course, for the obsessed, can be paralyzing, precisely because a further amendment, another change, an additional revision, can always arguably make it “more perfect” than not, and therefore one can be left swimming amidst the toxicity of a never-ending eternity of perfecting the imperfections that can never achieve perfection.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are preparing an imperfect Federal OPM Disability Retirement application, to be submitted first through one’s agency and the Human Resource Office (if still with the agency or, even if separated, not for more than 31 days), then on to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, be wary of becoming immobilized because you are unable to reach a standard of perfection that will “guarantee” a First Stage Success.

Life never allows for guarantees, leaving aside perfection in an imperfect world.  Administrative and bureaucratic procedures mirror life itself:  OPM’s imperfect methodology of human engagement in determining the validity of a Federal Disability Retirement application is simply another component within life’s vast array of imperfection.

The key in preparing a Federal Disability Retirement application is not whether the Federal Disability Retirement packet is “perfectly” compiled, but the more relevant question:  Is it an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, with the components included of a persuasive narrative, a strong legal argument, and a methodology which includes a roadmap for the U.S. Office of Personnel Management to approve the Federal Disability Retirement application?

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire