What happens at your Social Security Disability hearing

0:01 All right, everybody, this is Attorney Anthony Reeves and this is your legal beat tip of the day Today. We're going to talk about what actually happens at you're social Security hearing. For those of you who decide that you're going to represent yourself, I want to give you a couple of tidbits of information that might be helpful for you if you're deciding to represent yourself or go into the hearing, just in terms of explaining to you what's actually going to happen during the hearing. This presentation is not designed to give you any legal advice.

0:28 It's just only designed to kind of give you an expectation as to what to expect. First of all, when you get to the hearing, the judge will give you the opportunity or the court will give you the opportunity to review your file, so please take the opportunity. It'll probably be on CD format, so please take the opportunity. Review the CD. Make sure everything is where it's supposed to be. If there's anything outstanding that you have that you're going to bring with you, and when I mean outstanding, I mean medical records or any documentation, make sure you provide it to the court reporter when you get there. Now, once you go into the hearing, typically what the judge will do is the judge will basically go over the issues as

1:07 they relate to your case, and for the most part, it's limited for the five things, which is the five step sequential evaluation. The judge will discuss what the standard is in terms of what you need to do in order to prove that you're disabled. Now here's something that people need to fully understand.

1:23 When you come to the hearing, you bear the burden of proving that you are disabled. So when you're there, the judge is going to explain to you what standard you have to meet in or to prove it. First, he's going to ask are you working. Then if you're not working, he wants to know is or she wants to know is it because of a medical condition, either mental or physical or combination of both that keeps you out of work for twelve months or more. If it is, then he has to he or she has to determine whether that condition is so severe that he could approve you or she could approve you based solely on that medical condition itself.

1:59 That's what's called meeting the listings. If you aren't that severe, but your condition is severe enough where and impacts your ability to work. He then goes or she goes to the fourth step. The fourth step is determining your residual functional capacity. Now, for those of you who are like, what the heck is that long work? Basically, what can you do despite your condition? Meaning? Can you sit as normally as long as you used to?

2:22 Can you stand? You have problems with concentration? Do you get stressed easy? That, along with your age, your education, and your work background, the judge determines whether or not you can do any of the work you've done in the last fifteen years. If the judge determines that you can't do any of your past work, then the judge determines whether or not the judge things you can do anything else. Now, a couple of other things you need to be aware of. Those five steps are kind of like stop and go signs along the way. At different points, the judge can stop, meaning the determination doesn't have to go any further. For instance, the first step is are you working. You're working. The judge didn't have to

3:01 determine whether there's twelve months where you weren't working. That was affected by your medical condition, there's no twelve months. Then in theory the judge does not they'll go through the entire process. But in theory, your disability can stop just at the first step. Same thing with the fourth step. If the judge determines that you can do anything, any of the work you used to do in the last fifteen years, then the judge can make the determination that you're not disabled. Now here's another thing you need to be aware of.

3:30 The judge will not render the decision there. She will probably or he will probably put in writing. More than likely. That's most judges do because that document, the written document, is what's used in order for you to appeal if you get an unfavorable or for you to get paid if you get a favorable. Now I will tell you also, the judge will probably make a point in time to tell you, hey, if you want to get an attorney representative, please let me know at this time. If not, let me know if you wave your right to get a representative. In other words, what they're asking you is this, do you want to get a rep Do you want to have an attorney or a non attorney representative appear with you at the hearings. So this way you have someone who can argue on your

4:13 behalf. If you choose to go by yourself, they will tell you, they will ask you whether you or not you will waive your right, which means I'm willing to go on my own. Also, keep in mind there may be weird things that pop up in your case, meaning unemployment compensation you may have worked. There may be drugs and alcohol issues or what we call date last insured issues, all kinds of things that pop up. Remember, the judge's not there to educate you about all aspects of the law in terms of how it relates to your case. What the judge is going to be focused on when looking at your cases whether or not you've done what you need to do to prove whether you're disabled. So keep that in mind. That's why it's also important that when you get there and you look to see that

4:59 your medical re In most courts, they're not responsible for getting updated medical records for you if you are at the hearing level. So if you file a request for hearing back in January of two thousand and nine, and here it is October twenty ten, and you just get your hearing and you're mad because the last medical records are from June too nine, Well, that was the last time Social Security updated your file from that point going forward, They're not responsible. That responsibility falls on you. So if you walk in there and you notice that you got like a year worth of medical records and you've been going to doctors like crazy, it's not Social Security's fault. You bear that responsibility of making sure that your file is updated. Now. There may be

5:40 additional individuals in that hearing as well. Sometimes the judges call experts to provide expert testimony, and they'll explain to you what they're there for. A vocational expert is usually a person they call in to describe the kind of work you've done in the past, and also to describe how a person's limitations could affect the ability to do work. Same thing with the medical expert. A medical expert is there to provide expert testimony about the substance of the medical records that have been provided. The hearing itself typically takes anywhere from about thirty to forty five minutes, depending on the judge. Some judges are really quick, some take an extreme long amount of time, so but on average, about thirty

6:16 to forty five minutes when you walk out of that hearing. When you walk out of that hearing, make sure that the court has an updated address for you so that this way they can get their decision to you in a timely manner. Now here's another thing you need to be aware. Don't call blowing up the court's phone. They're not going to be able to tell you when a written decision is going to come out because it takes anywhere from two to six months, and that's an approximation. Every judge is a little quicker.

6:44 I mean, every judge is a little different. Some are quicker than others. So when they tell you don't hang your hat. When the judge says, oh, we can get it to you in thirty sixty days, and any mad on a sixty fifth day because you haven't gotten it, they operate on a wholly different timetable. Because you got to remember, they're dealing with a volume of people who've applied. So when you walk out of that hearing, two things you need to keep in mind when you walk out of that hearing, there's two things that you need to keep in mind. First, if there's something that wasn't in your file, you might want to try your best to get it for the judge before the judge makes that decision. To wait, that's all you can do when you get that, when you get

7:31 the decision, just roll with it accordingly. All right, that's enough for me today. That is a end up discussion about what happens at the hearing. If I went really fast, and you have any questions or comments about certain things, please, by all means hit some comments. I read all comments, and I tried to post YouTube responses and responses to those comments.

7:53 And it's always it's a pleasure to have you. And this is Reeves and you can hit me up at www dot Reevesfirm dot com.