Welcome! This site is written for Social Security disability claimants, for their legal representatives, and for the network of people involved in the Social Security disability claim process. I hope you find it helpful.
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As promised, the SSA has updated its online services for representatives to include the name of the administrative law judge (ALJ) assigned to claims at the hearing level.

Just log in to your online services account, go to Electronic Records Express (ERE) Home, and select "Get Hearing office Status Report." Both the "quick view" version


The "secret ALJ" policy implemented in late 2011 has come to an end. For the past year and a half or so, the particular administrative law judge (ALJ) assigned to your disability case was not disclosed prior to the day of the hearing. It was a terrible policy, and now the policy has changed.

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I see on the record decisions for Social Security disability claims in two different circumstances.

An "on the record" (OTR) decision refers to Social Security disability and SSI claims pending at the hearing level at the Office of Disability Adjudication and Review (ODAR) that are granted on the record prior to a hearing. An on the record decision can

The onset date is the beginning of your Social Security disability claim. It is the date when your impairments prevented you from working at the level of substantial gainful activity.

In our current climate for Social Security disability claims, onset dates have been under pressure from both DDS and from administrative law judges. Even very

It has been about a year since the SSA instituted a policy of not disclosing in advance of the hearing the identity of the administrative law judge assigned to a particular disability claim. The policy was aimed, it appears, at those declining video hearings with judges with a poor history of granting disability claims (an

The hearing with a Social Security administrative law judge is critically important, because it is the only time that you are in the same room with the person deciding your claim for disability benefits.

The primary purpose of the hearing is to take your testimony. Many clients do not realize this, and have an expectation that the

Just prior to a recent hearing for a Social Security disability claim, the administrative law judge told me his specific concerns about the case. I wish that would happen before every hearing.

In this particular claim, there was a disparity between the objective testing of the claimant's vision in the doctor's office and the real-life