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CASE

Correspondence in a DOHA case

Each letter in a contested case: what it is, what it means, what to do, what happens next, and what the decided record shows. Select the letter you received.

Before any decision

Interrogatory (LOI)

The government's case

SORFORMNotice of Hearing

Decision and appeal

The decisionAppeal Board

File of Relevant Material (the written-record file)

In plain terms

On the written-record path (a decision on the paperwork instead of a hearing), the government's lawyer, called Department Counsel, assembles a file of everything it wants the judge to consider. That packet is known as the “FORM,” short for File of Relevant Material. It is the evidence the judge decides from, with no hearing and no testimony. (The nickname is DOHA practice; the official rules never use the word.)

How you got here

The written-record path applies only when neither side wants a hearing. After the applicant's answer, Department Counsel still has its own 20-day window to request a hearing; if it does, the case is on the hearing path instead.

The deadline

The applicant has 30 days from receiving the file to respond. This is the opportunity to object to anything in it and to add any other material the judge should see.

The deadline printed in the letter you received always controls. Work out your exact dates with the deadline calculator.

What the record shows

The two paths differ materially in the decided record.

Decided on the written record

17% granted · 1,479 granted · 7,158 denied

Decided after a hearing

43% granted · 7,579 granted · 10,101 denied

This is an association, not causation: harder cases may sort differently between the two paths to begin with.

For a FORM response, the CASE Prep report shows how similar written-record cases resolved.

If the document received is not correspondence in a contested case (a questionnaire, a release, a fingerprint request, a processing notice, or an access agreement), see the clearance document directory, which identifies each form and notice by its number.

How the process worksThe letters sit inside a published sequence: interrogatories, the SOR, a hearing or the written record, a decision, and an appeal.

A contested case follows a published path: a Statement of Reasons, the government's written list of its concerns (an SOR), a written answer, a hearing or a decision on the written record, the judge's decision, and in some cases an appeal.

Read the stages of a DOHA case · Ask a question about the process

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Decided public cases: descriptive, never a prediction.