New ALJ Register Established

OPM has established a new register of candidates for administrative law judge positions, the latest step in a long process that involved challenges to the prior procedures for hiring ALJs and the announcement earlier this year of a new set of qualification standards. ALJs are one of the few employment categories in which a centralized register of candidates is still used to fill vacancies; most other hiring is now done on a case-by-case basis by individual agencies. There are about 1,400 ALJs, most of them at SSA, who decide on benefits, the application of certain rules, and other legal issues.