DOHA Hearing Attorney

Who Needs A DOHA Hearing Attorney: DoD Contractors, Employees, and Military Personnel

If you have received a Statement of Reasons from the Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency (DCSA), you will be notified that if your response is unsuccessful, you may elect to have a hearing in front of a Defense Office of Hearings and Appeals (DOHA) administrative judge.
This means that an administrative judge appointed by DOHA will hear your case and referee disputes between you and the government over the concerns raised in the SOR.
If your clearance denial or revocation becomes final, you must wait a year before reapplying, which can result in job loss and derailment of a career. Hiring a qualified and experienced security clearance lawyer to guide you through the process can improve your chances of success and save your clearance and career.

Understanding The DOHA Security Clearance Hearing Process

Adjudicative Standards

The DOHA hearing process remains focused on the 13 national security adjudicative guidelines and whether an individual’s conduct is both established and, if so, entirely mitigated to resolve concerns.
The government need only present “substantial evidence” to establish a security concern, at which point the applicant must present contrary evidence that either refutes the government’s case or so mitigates it that no concern remains.

DOHA Hearing Process

The Defense Office of Hearings and Appeals (DOHA) handles cases for the Department of Defense once the SOR response is deemed insufficient to allow the government to withdraw its intent to revoke your security clearance. While the process differs slightly for contractors compared to uniformed military and civilian government employees, much of it is the same. This can be accomplished not just with documentary evidence, but testimony of witnesses to specific facts or the applicant’s character.

Initial Case Assignment

The first indication that a case has not been favorably resolved through the SOR response is often an email from a government attorney known as DOHA department counsel, noting that they are assigned to your case. There will often be a request to acknowledge that you wish to proceed with the personal appearance hearing. Once that is confirmed, the case will be assigned to an administrative law judge, also employed by DOHA, and the case will then be set for a hearing date.

Scheduling

The hearing will normally be scheduled several weeks in advance. While you are entitled to an in-person hearing for your case, most hearing occurs via video teleconference over Microsoft Teams. The benefit of this is that you can provide the meeting link to witnesses you wish to call on your behalf and do not have to ask them to travel to the hearing location. You will be required to provide a list of witnesses and exhibits in advance of the hearing, usually a week before, but longer with expert witnesses. The government is not required to have a lawyer present on its behalf, but almost always does so, so it is crucial to have an experienced security clearance lawyer representing your interests as well.

Procedure

As the applicant has the burden to show it is clearly consistent with the national interest to gain or maintain a clearance, the applicant presents evidence after any procedural matters and brief opening statements.
As evidence is normally required to be submitted at least a week in advance of the hearing, the administrative judge will usually ask if the parties are stipulating to the admission of all the exhibits that were exchanged. Some exhibits may be objected to and the judge will make a ruling based on the objection.
Witnesses can be called in any order if agreed to by the administrative judge and government’s lawyer, but the applicant normally testifies as the final witness in their own case.
The government’s lawyer and the judge will ask questions of each witness, as well as of the applicant. You or your lawyer also have the opportunity to cross examine witnesses presented by the government.
Once all the testimony has been taken and the evidence admitted, the parties make closing arguments, and the case is submitted for decision by the judge. The administrative judge’s credibility determinations and factual findings based on documentary evidence and testimony will form the basis of the ruling.
If there are additional documents or other evidence that either side wants to submit but did not have available prior to the hearing, the record is often kept open for a period of time, usually a couple of weeks to a month, to allow the parties to submit.

Decision

It is important to note that for uniformed military personnel and federal employees of DOD, the judge makes a recommendation to the Personnel Security Appeals Board (PSAB) for a decision. The PSAB reviews the administrative judge’s findings and makes a decision. This decision is final and not appealable.

For defense contractors, the judge provides a formal written decision. The administrative judge’s decision can be appealed to the DOHA Appeal Board by the losing side within 15 days of issuance of the decision.

The government is able to appeal a favorable granting of access to classified information even if you succeed at the hearing.

Hire An Experienced Security Clearance Law Firm For Your DOHA Hearing

Our firm has represented hundreds of clients at all stages of the Department of Defense security clearance process. We are familiar with government counsel, the judges, and the administrative procedures. If you are responding to an SOR and wondering whether you should elect a personal appearance hearing, or are facing the specter of appearing before a DOHA administrative judge, contact us today to discuss your options. We offer free confidential consultations to review your case and help you decide the best path forward to protect your clearance and your career.