DISABILITY SURVIVAL GUIDE: NORTH ALABAMA EDITION

What can you do when you get a tough Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) in your SSDI hearing? Let's face it.  All judges are not created equal. In the same hearing office, award rates may vary by 20 to 30 percentage points among the judges. You may walk into one hearing room and sit before a judge who pays 65 percent of her claims.  But walk into a different hearing room, in the same building, and sit before a judge who only pays 20 percent of his claims. Since you can't choose your judge, how can you deal with a tough judge? 1.  Prepare Well.  Inundate the judge with objective medical and vocational evidence that can't be reasonably denied. Prove your case! 2.  Don't stop with just medical records.  Get one or more of your treating doctors to provide a detailed Residual Functional Capacity (RFC) form. One judge with whom I am familiar will take one (or both) of the following approaches on a functional capacity form: A.  Judge:  Were you present when ...

Here are the reasons you need a lawyer for Social Security Disability benefits (SSDI): 1.     Only an experienced lawyer knows the judges, people, laws and procedures involved in an SSDI claim.  If you try to do it alone, you will be involved in your FIRST case and won't know where to begin.  Would you hire a representative who has never tried a case before?  Of course not, so why try it yourself for the first time? 2.  Only lawyers will know the technical terms and expressions used by Social Security judges and decision makers:  Date Last Insured (DLI), Alleged Onset Date (AOD), SVP (Specific Vocational Preparation), Primary Insurance Amount (PIA), etc.  As one judge told a claimant, "Come back with someone who speaks my language." 3.  Only lawyers know how to provide the evidence it takes to win your claim.  They assist in gathering, evaluating and submitted this evidence. 4.  Lawyers know the legal arguments to make (and not...