Hearings & Appeals

Is Your Hearing the First Time You Will Meet with Your Social Security Lawyer?

October 4, 2010
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Not at our firm. We’ve personally observed claimants waiting at the hearing office, on the day of their hearing, to meet their lawyer for the very first time. Those lawyers are almost always from national firms, such as the ones that advertise on TV. And, it’s important to note, that they’re not always lawyers, either. [...]

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Things a Judge Will Not Consider at Your Disability Hearing

September 2, 2010

If you have applied for Social Security disability you probably don’t realize that many of the real-world circumstances you find yourself in won’t be considered by the judge that will hear your case. The judge won’t consider: That you cannot find a job The fact that there are no job openings where you live That [...]

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Should I Appeal My Social Security Disability Claim to Federal Court?

June 3, 2010
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If your claim is denied by a judge, and you appeal to the Appeals Council, your only option for appeal at that point is to appeal it to the federal court. In most cases, you have only 60 days from the date you received the denial to file your appeal. (Some cases only get 30 [...]

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What Is the Five-step Process That Social Security Uses to Decide Disability Claims? (Part 3: The Listing of Impairments)

May 27, 2010
Step 3 of the sequential evaluation process

Please keep in mind that a lot of the terms used by Social Security to determine disability have specific legal meanings and probably don’t mean what you think they do. Social Security has a list of impairments that it uses at this step to determine if you are disabled. If your impairments is on the [...]

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What Is the Five-step Process That Social Security Uses to Decide Disability Claims? (Part 2: Severity & Duration)

May 22, 2010
Step 2 of the sequential evaluation process

This is the second installment of our explanation of the 5-step process that Social Security uses to determine if your are disabled. Please keep in mind that a lot of the terms used by Social Security to determine disability have specific legal meanings and probably don’t mean what you think they do. After Social Security [...]

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