Advice needed on LTC appeal

[Bill of Rights]

OK, I'm going to give you the rest of the story on this thread. Back in September 2010, I met with Bryan Lee Ciyou, to get started on the appeal. He was excellent in his approach, and we put together a whole binder full of information for the Board to "supplement" my original application. The approach was one to buttress my application in such a way that it would be very difficult to argue against my suitability for a LTCH.

I did have a brief psychological eval done, which came out clean. We sent verification that my treating psychologist from 19 years earlier was indeed dead. We sent copies of Ohio mental health records law, showing that after seven years, records can be destroyed, justifying why I couldn't produce any records.

Then we submitted all sorts of things that indicated from other parties that I was not impaired, such as my license from the State Board of Psychology, my contract work with federal agencies to perform fitness for duty evaluations, etc. So, in went my professional resume. The whole binder was more than an inch thick. The point was to provide additional information to clarify why I was a suitable person for an LTCH.

In the end, last March, almost a year after I originally applied, the board reconsidered my application and granted the LTCH. I did not have to go through the appeals process.

Here's where having an excellent attorney really helped. Bryan Lee Ciyou knows the law around LTCH and the adminstrative process very well; he's handled hundreds of cases in the area. He also knows the people involved in the process. He was a top-notch advocate for me.

This was not a cheap process; in all, with the psychological evaluation and everything, it cost me over $3K to go through the process to get the LTCH. It's worth having. And it was good to see that the process works, at least if one has the money and perseverance.

It was also good to get to know Bryan. If I am ever in a situation where I need an attorney in a firearms/self-defense situation, I know who I will call. The guy is competent, and I've dealt with quite a number of attorneys in the past, some as an expert witness, and few of them have impressed me.

-ski-

Congratulations on completing your goal! It is indeed sad that someone must pay exorbitant sums of money to exercise his or her rights, solely because of bureaucratic .

Thanks for posting the results as well; I remembered your thread once I started reading it... it's good to see results and closure.

Blessings,
Bill

 

[DCR]

Well done. Glad things worked out for you.

Question: Do you think, as someone suggested, that the issue was that you didn't provide the documentation in the first place or that someone judged you an improper person?

 

[-ski-]

I thought I had provided enough documentation; the psychologist was dead, the records unavailable. In the original explanatory letter, I described the reasons I went to therapy, that there was no diagnosis I could recall, etc. I came at it from the perspective that I had the right to an LTCH unless they had compelling evidence otherwise. It never occurred to me that an absence of records and a treating psychologist that was dead could be used to determine that I was unfit.

I think they must have assumed that since I was in therapy at a point in the distant past, and I didn't provide external evidence that I was fine now (almost twenty years later), that I should be deemed not fit. This is disturbing, because if it's true, then it seems that any mental health treatment in the past is ipso facto evidence of unfitness to carry.

I think the most important aspect in my addendum to the application was the psychological eval -- because with it, the board can refer to an external expert who had evaluated me and determined that there was no reason for concern. Thus, if in the future there was some problem (e.g. I get charged with a gun-related crime), they could point to the psychological report that cleared me.

My sense is that they are being very conservative with the granting of the LTCH. If there's something unusual in the application, the bias is toward saying no.

-ski-

 

[Dirtebiker]

Glad it worked out in your favor, but over $3k... Wow... Seems high to me! Did Bryan really have to do that much work or am I missing something?

 

[-ski-]

We took the approach of "bulletproofing" the revised application -- thus some of it was probably overkill. To me, it was worth it, because I wanted to minimize the possibility of losing on appeal. Also, Bryan's work was meticulous, and it took time to put together the binder full of info. I found satisfaction in that we did all that we could do to increase the odds of a favorable outcome. Could we have done less, and still gotten the LTCH? Probably. But if a lesser attempt failed, then I have no recourse after the failed appeal. I wanted my case to be as complete as possible.

Also, Bryan put a bunch of hours in on the case that he didn't charge me for. I appreciated this. It was clear that he took the work very seriously and didn't want to go with half-measures, but also that it was expensive, so he cut me a break. That guy doesn't like to lose. Ever.

-ski-