Every other Friday, I link to notable articles on the topic of Social Security disability:
Here in the Boston Region, we receive 75-day notice before a Social Security disability hearing by an administrative law judge.
Once a request for hearing is processed, the claimant receives a routine form letter from the hearing office that sets the stage for an eventual hearing. The letter starts like this:
Thank you for your
Kaizen is the Japanese philosophy of continuous improvement, usually in the areas of manufacturing, engineering, and business management. It involves taking frequent small steps to improve your process. After months or a year of making small improvements, you are way ahead of the place where you started.
I have adopted this approach to my
I was scheduled this morning to be at a Social Security administrative hearing. But the administrative law judge, after reviewing the claim prior to the hearing (including the treatment summary and medical source statement from the treating psychiatrist), granted the claim on the record. As a result, the hearing was cancelled, and a fully
Every other Friday, I highlight articles of note for Social Security disability claimants and their representatives:
At both the Portland, Maine ODAR and the Maine Disability Determination Services (DDS), the processing of disability claims has slowed measurably due to budget constraints. My understanding is that both these offices have hiring freezes, so that departing employees cannot be replaced.
This is particularly an issue at DDS, because turnover there was already high.
Imagine you are a Social Security administrative law judge (ALJ), and that you are preparing for a hearing to decide whether or not a claimant receives disability benefits. What information is available to you to review prior to the hearing?
Put yourself in the position of the ALJ looking at the file for the first
With the recent multi-million dollar investment by Google Ventures into Rocket Matter, and the apparent success of LegalZoom, there is much discussion about the role and effect of venture capital on legal services.
There is a long list of reservations about the intersection of venture capital and legal services, and many are watching
Every other Friday, I publish articles of note regarding Social Security disability.
I had a stretch of time this summer where our little Social Security disability law firm had very few hearings scheduled, due to slowdowns at the Portland, Maine and Manchester, New Hampshire hearing offices. I devised a four-point strategy to use the extra time of our two lawyers, our paralegal, and our legal assistant.
Now