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Posts from the ‘Attorney Representation’ Category

15
Jul

SGA – Substantial Gainful Activity- Presumptive Amounts

At Step One of the Five Step Sequential Analysis , Social Security determines if you are engaged in Substantial Gainful Activity (SGA). When you work for someone else and are not self-employed, SSA usually uses a “rule of thumb” to determine if someone is engaged in SGA. According to this “rule of thumb” if you earn a certain dollar amount or less, you are usually not considered to be engaged in Substantial Gainful Activity. Read moreRead more

9
Jul

The Whole Truth

Sometimes claimants forget that in the questions that Social Security asks, they are always really asking: “how does your medical impairment keep you from working?”

Social Security asks a lot of questions about what you do during the day. These types of questions are about your activities of daily living. The idea is that if Social Security asks you what you do day in and day out and learns what you do, they can then figure out if your medical impairment would prevent you from working.

So, what does Social Security conclude if you state that you go out to eat several times a month? This depends upon what your medical impairments are.  Assume you cannot work due to back pain. You cannot stand for more than 15 minutes at a time before you have to sit down for 15 minutes. You cannot sit for more than 30 minutes before you have to stand or lie down. Can you guess what conclusions Social Security is likely to jump to about your ability to work because you go out to eat?

When I go over these types of issues with my clients, they have no idea what the real question is that they are answering. Due to not knowing the real question, they do not tell all that they know that is relevant to the real question. Since they do not tell everything they know that is relevant to the real question, they actually end up in effect lying.  They are not telling the whole truth, only part of the truth. Do not misunderstand me, they are trying to tell the truth, but they do not understand the real question.  They are not telling all that they know which is critical to answering the real question. This partial truth-only part of the facts-is used by Social Security to reach conclusions about whether or not they are disabled. When they do not have all of the facts, how can Social Security make the right decision?

Some Administrative Law Judges will compare what the claimants says at the hearing with what they told SSA at the beginning of the process before the claimant understood what was really being asked.  If there is any variation, they conclude that the claimant is not being truthful.  Our clients want to tell the truth. We help them to tell the whole truth at the beginning of the process. We help them understand the question – the real issues in the questions that Social Security is going to ask them. Do you have someone with the experience needed to help you tell the whole truth?

7
Jul

Five Step Sequential Evaluation

Social Security uses a 5 step sequential evaluation process to decide your claim. Read moreRead more

3
Jul

Celebrate Our Liberty and Rights

us flag

I hope you have a fun and safe Fourth of July. It is a great time to celebrate our liberty and rights. The holiday is known as Independence Day because our forefathers had to fight for our liberty and rights. The government of that time (British) did not want to recognize the rights that we were claiming. It was only by our forefathers fighting hard and not giving up that we have our rights today.

No one man could do it by himself. Read moreRead more

30
Jun

Medical Impairment, Ability to Work, & Social Security Disability

I previously discussed Medical Impairments and Social Security Disability. Sometimes claimants forget that Social Security only pays disability benefits if you can prove that it is your medical impairment(s) that prevent you from working. SSA does not pay for bad attitudes (unless it is a diagnosed personality disorder that is rather severe), the factory closing, or ‘I just for some unknown reason can not work’. You have to prove that it is your medical impairment that prevents you from working.

When you are proving that it is your medical impairment that is keeping you from working, Read moreRead more

17
Jun

When Should I Hire An Attorney For My Disability Case?

I recently was the moderator of a panel discussion at the Indiana Continuing Legal Education Forum Social Security disability seminar “Persuasion at Social Security Hearings: Beyond the Mechanics at ODAR Hearings”. During another part of the seminar, an attorney was asked when he would begin representing clients in their Social Security Claim. He responded that he would not represent a claimant until they had been turned down at least once. I used to do it that way.

When I first started representing claimants in 1994, I also would not take a client until they had been turned down at least once. I reasoned that if someone could be approved on their initial application without an attorney, why not let them go ahead on their own and find out if their claim could be approved. They could save an attorney fee and it would not hurt their case if they did lose, so why not wait to see who really needed an attorney to help them?

But then I started to notice something. When people applied by themselves, they were making it harder to win their case by not having an attorney at the beginning to explain to them the rules of Social Security. They were unknowingly lowering the odds for success at that stage and at the appeal stages. They were not realizing that they were making strategic decisions that might ruin their claim before some administrative law judges. They did not have someone to help them figure out what was the relevant evidence that they needed to be sure they presented to Social Security. I figured out that I was wrong-people were hurting their case by not having an attorney at the beginning of their case.

Several years ago I decided that I had to start taking claimants as clients as soon as possible. Claimants needed to be represented before they filed their claim. If I made a claimant wait until they were turned down before I would represent them, their not knowing the rules put them at a disadvantage: bad evidence was created, good evidence was not brought forward, other strategic choices were being made that could not be undone, and good claims were being unnecessarily tainted with misinformation.

Do not wait to hire an attorney. Get competent help before you file so that the job will be done correctly from the beginning. Do not hope that the attorney can tear out the bad and re-do it. Do it right the first time. It can shorten the whole disability process. Get an attorney that will represent you from the beginning of your claim. Have someone on your side that knows the rules of Social Security and can explain them to you.

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