Educate, Advocate, Empower! AALJ Holds 30th Education Conference

Last week nearly 200 members and leaders from the Association of Administrative Law Judges (AALJ/IFPTE Judicial Council 1) gathered in New Orleans, Louisiana to attend the union’s 2023 Education Conference.   

This year’s conference, moderated by AALJ President, Judge Som Ramrup, included several educational sessions and remarks from Social Security advocates, including Social Security Works Coalition President, Nancy Altman.  

Educational sessions entitled Avoiding Implicit Bias in the Adjudication Process; The Evaluation of Schizophrenia Spectrum and Other Psychotic Disorders in the Context of Disability Adjudication; Adjudication of Cases Involving Liver Disease, Including the Impacts of Drug Abuse and Alcoholism; Updates on Inflammatory Bowel and Other Gastrointestinal Disorders: Considerations for Case Adjudication; and Reasonable Accommodation Requests and the Interactive Process, were among the many topics that were presented.  

In addition to the training conference attended by IFPTE International President Matt Biggs, Secretary-Treasurer Gay Henson, and Legislative Director Faraz Khan, the AALJ also held its annual membership meeting on Wednesday evening.  AALJ President Judge Ramrup provided the following comments on the overall conference:  “This year’s conference and membership meeting was an opportunity for AALJ members to not only receive valuable training to assist judges with making reasoned and informed disability decisions, but it was also an occasion for us to meet as a union and discuss the huge gains we achieved at the bargaining table as a result of the contract we ratified with SSA last year. The AALJ membership is strong, and our judges are all committed to providing the American public with impartial disability decisions based on the law.  We had a successful conference and look forward to our next conference, which will be held in Las Vegas, Nevada in March 2025.” 

Learn more about the AALJ/IFPTE Judicial Council 1 here.