Posted: Mon Jul 14, 2008 07:54 pm Post subject: Positive Reinforcement that AC does sometimes read briefs
I recently received an AC remand that has temporarily revived my belief that there are in fact real live people who work in Falls Church and they do in fact read the briefs we spend time crafting for them.
While I haven't ever kept track, this remand order seems to contain for me a record number of issues requiring remand, six total. I only raised five in my brief, all five of which the AC agreed with, and they even threw in another reason all on their own.
Its amazing how such a simple thing as finding someone who agrees with you can brighten your day. _________________ Ken Karlock
Columbus Ohio
www.karlocklaw.com
Irony occupies a space between humor and sarcasm. When irony is small, and when it is closer to humor than sarcasm, it brings a smile. Thank you, Ken, for this morning's smile.
Here's what you posted three months ago:
Quote:
Does the AC really even read what we send in? There is never anyway to know except when you are successful.
This is entirely consistent with your new post: as a general rule, the advocate will be able to detect signs that someone has read his or her brief only in an order of remand, not in a notice of denial. Ironic, no, that you could react to this phenomenon so differently, one post to another?
That's an awfully young-looking face on your web page. I suspect your experience doesn't go back to those days, now long gone, when operating instructions called for AC denial notices to include a response to contentions. There's another small irony is that the 7/20/95 memo giving the "temporary" instructions that suspended this practice is coming up on its 13th anniversary in a few days. There's yet another irony in that the memo's author retired a few months ago.
By now it's easy enough to see that the temporary suspension of responding to contentions has become a permanent practice. This is not going to be enough to head off increasing backlogs. Back in the bad old days of the mid to late 1990's, the AC's backlog skyrocketed to 140,000 cases. It took a good many years and untold thousands of hours of overtime to to get this down to not much above 40,000 cases. That was back around the end of fiscal 2006.
Less than two years later, it's currently about 60,000. That's a long way from 140,000. But I think we've achieved the right acceleration. We're on our way toward escape velocity. So I'm looking for the AC's backlog to go into orbit over the next couple of years. Even though we've started working on Sundays again. _________________ I've posted this in my private capacity. What I post might be wrong. Probably, it IS wrong. Any errors are my own. Please don't infer any SSA approval for what I post.
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