The Office of Appellate Operations (OAO) maintains the Hearings, Appeals and Litigation Law (HALLEX) manual. OAO is also the national coordination point for HALLEX issuances. OAO performs the following functions:

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  Develops policies, standards, and procedures for maintaining HALLEX;

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  Initiates or coordinates updates and revisions to existing HALLEX;

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  Reviews and provides final approval for all proposed issuances for conformity and consistency with established standards, policies, and procedures; and

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  Maintains records of published HALLEX issuances.

Depending on the subject matter, components in the Office of Hearings Operations (such as the Office of the Chief Administrative Law Judge (OCALJ)) or other components in the Office of Disability Adjudication may notify OAO of the need to develop and update HALLEX to reflect the procedures they require to implement policy and process their workloads. “Procedures” means the step-by-step instructions staff in the components follow and the standardized text that components require to process cases.

OAO collaborates with the component(s) responsible for implementing a specific policy to:

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  Establish accurate, current, and complete procedures; and

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  Prepare issuances that meet the users' needs.

OAO and OCALJ are the primary authors of HALLEX.

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  OAO is responsible for writing and revising materials in HAs 013, 014, and 025.

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  OCALJ is responsible for writing and revising materials in HA 012.

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  OAO and OCALJ share responsibility for HA 011 and 015, depending on the subject matter.