DO YOU REALLY NEED A SOCIAL SECURITY ATORNEY?

Not having an attorney or professional advocate can send negative messages that you may never know about but which may hurt your chance of being paid.

Also, being unrepresented can harm your chances because of several other reasons:

1) Your hearing will probably be delayed a few months if you appear without an attorney.  It is standard practice for judges to delay a hearing so the claimant can find representation.  This delay can be from 3 to 6 months.  Once delayed, it takes time to get back on the docket. 

2) You don't know how to craft your case to take advantage of pre-published Social Security rules that would approve you--such as Listings or Medical-Vocational Guidelines (grid rules).

2)  You may miss opportunities for approval posed by your age, your past work or your limited education.

3)  Social Security decision makers can adopt a Residual Functional Capacity (RFC) that permits you to perform more work than you are actually able to perform.  This will get you denied.

4)  You may fail to get the one piece of medical evidence that could get you approved.  An example would be failure to get a medical source statement.

5)  The judge at your hearing may amend your Alleged Onset Date (AOD).  This can cost you thousands of dollars in back pay and delay Medicare by as much as two years.  When this happens you get a "Partially Favorable" decision instead of a "Fully Favorable" decision.

6)  Social Security's vocational expert (present for all hearings), will probably conclude that there are some really easy jobs in the nation's economy that you can still do, despite your impairments.  These experts will typically testify that you can't do your past work but you can still be employed as a small parts assembler, an inspector or a pickle pusher.  So, you lose at Step 5 of the sequential evaluation process.  An attorney knows how to challenge this testimony.

A good thing about representation is that it costs you nothing unless you win.  It still costs you nothing unless you recover back pay.  Talk to an experienced Social Security disability attorney or non-attorney professional advocate.  I think you will be glad you did. Some things are OK to go it alone.  Social Security disability is not one of them.
____________

E-Mail Me:   forsythefirm@gmail.com

Call us:  (256) 799-0297