High Hopes for OATH
In February, I wrote an article about the City’s Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings, known as OATH, taking over impartial hearings — and about all of the anxiety people have been feeling around it. This past week, I was lucky enough to get coffee and touch base with an attorney who recently took a position as an OATH hearing officer, one of the first special education hearing officers from the OATH office.
This is a woman that I've known for several years now, when she was first thinking about breaking into the field. She has always impressed me with her integrity and commitment to doing what's right, and this time was no exception– it was a very encouraging conversation.
She let me know that the special ed hearing officers with OATH are going to be part of a new team that is focused solely on special education, populated with hearing officers who specifically requested to work in that area. She then went on to say that, throughout their training, the hearing officers had been instructed time and again that it is not their job to protect the City; rather, they are independent and should be impartial in their findings and in their hearings. This is as it should be — if the DOE wants to win more hearings, they should do so by improving their arguments, not stacking the odds in their favor.
Talking to her really strengthened my sense that there is nothing in OATH to be afraid of, other than the unknown, the newness of it. She herself had first become interested in special education law with an eye towards representing parents. In my opinion, she brings that same sensitivity to the experience of parents with special needs now, with her work at OATH.
Marc Gottlieb
Partner
195 Montague Street
14th Floor
Brooklyn Heights, NY, 11201
Marc@GottliebFirm.com
(646) 820-8506