In this video Marc Whitehead, a Board Certified Social Security Disability Attorney, explains how to make arguments to win your case.
As a SSD Attorney, I work very hard to prepare my clients cases for disability appeals hearings. Unfortunately there are somethings that I just can’t know.
Will the ALJ say that there is past relevant work that you can do?
Will they find that your work experience, your age, education or Residual Functional Capacity shows that you are able to handle a number of different jobs?
These are things that come up in steps 4 and 5 of the appeals process and they just can’t be predicted when putting your case together before the hearing. Because of this experienced disability Attorneys tend to follow The Rule of Three.
What’s the Rule of Three?
It is a strategy that says it is wise for your lawyer to show up at the hearing with three arguments for each of the potential issues that may come up in step 4 or 5.
What are these potential issues?
1- Your past relevant work: your lawyer should have argument showing why specific jobs should not count as your past relevant work.
2- Your ability to preform your past work in a competitive job market: you need to show that you wouldn’t be able to do the job as its actually or generally preformed.
3- Why can’t you do other work, known as Step 5 jobs: These are the other jobs that the judge may argue that you can do. You should have three arguments stating why you couldn’t do them.
4- Theories of Disability: It’s not enough to say that you’re disabled. Your representative should have three disability theories ready to argue for this as well. For example: “Your Honor, my client is disabled under Medical Listing 1.04, he also meets grid rule 201.14, Alternatively hes at a less then sedentary work capacity.”
While this may should like a foreign language to you, the judge and any good SS lawyer knows what that means.
Why the Rule of Three?
The shortest answer is that your Lawyer just can’t assume that the judge will agree with him based on a single reason.
What if the judge isn’t swayed or what if they have a counter argument that nullifies that reason entirely?
This is why it is so important to have an experienced Attorney to support you at each step so that you’ll have the best chance of winning your SSD Appeal.
