From my first day serving the Board to my last, I frequently researched and wrote my own decisions—often with the assistance of the Agency’s legal staff.  Along the way, I also took every opportunity to improve the policies and procedures that guide the way the Board handles cases and makes decisions. 

Some of the decisions I authored have been affirmed by both the Appellate Court 3rd Department and Court of Appeals, and some have redefined case law and revised interpretations of Workers’ Compensation Law.

I designed computer programs for my own use to help me gain a wider perspective of the legal, medical, and other seemingly miscellaneous details of the nearly 40,000 decisions and 5,000 settlements in which I have participated. Some of the programs I designed for my own use were also incorporated into the redesign of the Agency’s data management systems from a voluminous and inefficient paper-file system into what many consider one of the finest paperless systems in any agency in any state government.

Despite all the positive changes in recent years, especially those made under the leadership of the Board’s former Chairman Robert Snashall, there are still tens of thousands of unnecessary controversies and contradictory decisions every year which result in delays for injured workers getting their replacement wages and medical care and higher than ever insurance premiums for the companies who are required by law to have workers’ compensation insurance.

Over the years I also kept ‘a journal’ that became a 555-page ‘CaseNotes Handbook’ which contains hundreds of pages of case law, precedents, and recommended legal arguments and indicia tables, among other information. The combination of these ongoing projects created a powerful set of tools to allow me to evaluate the types of cases being presented, the strategies used by both sides, and the role of the Board in achieving the Agency’s mission, which has inspired me to continue my service to New York’s Workers’ Compensation system from outside the Agency.