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Recent Selective Service Cases

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It has been some time since I updated the Selective Service portion of the blog. Over the course of the past year, I have continued to handle a number of Selective Services cases that were adjudicated favorably by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM). These cases involved applicants for federal positions who were deemed ineligible for federal service due to their failure to register with the Selective Service and a contractor who worked at a federal facility who was flagged for not having registered. These cases involved various agencies, including the U.S. Forest Service, Voice of America, Department of Defense and Department of Energy.

Most of these cases followed the typical fact pattern seen in many previous cases: many involved clients born outside of the United States; others involved clients born and raised in the United States. In each of these cases, we were able to convince OPM that our client's failure to timely register with the Selective Service was not knowing and willful. With that determination, each of these individuals was deemed eligible for federal employment.

Several cases did have unusual wrinkles. One case involved a client who recalled registering while attending high school many years ago; however, the Selective Service Agency had no record of his registration. We were able to obtain the affidavit of a classmate, who was active Air Force, who recalled our client's registration from their high school days. With this information, OPM determined that the fact that the Selective Service Agency had no record of our client's registration did not result from a knowing and willful act on the part of our client. In another case, our client had indeed registered — but two years late, when he was 28 years of age. Selective Service had our client's registration card but did not deem him timely registered. On these facts, OPM determined that it was clear that our client had not intentionally avoided registering and deemed him eligible for federal employment.