New York Social Security Disability Lawyer Blog

A bit of good news was announced today by the Social Security Administration: The Federal Register reports that the Attorney Advisor program has been extended to August 10, 2011.

This program, which applies to Social Security Disability claims, authorizes attorney advisors to conduct certain pre-hearing procedures and to issue fully favorable decisions after a Disability claim is appealed to the Office of Hearings and Appeals. The program had initially been slated to expire on August 10, 2009, so this two year extension is clearly an acknowledgement of the success of the program. The Federal Register acknowledges that "[t]he attorney advisor program is an important part of our ongoing efforts to decide cases efficiently, issue decisions timely, and reduce the number of claims pending at the hearing level."

As a Disability attorney I view this news extremely positively. What it means is that if a case is strong enough to win without a hearing, there are additional people, besides the VERY busy Administrative Law Judges, whom I can approach to discuss the merits of a Disability claim.

Ultimately, what the extension of this program means is that some claimants will get favorable resolution of their claims without waiting the full 12-24 months that is typically expected to have a hearing.

Gabe Hermann

I had the pleasure of giving a Seminar on Social Security Disability Rights a couple of weeks ago.

In response to a question about who is present at a hearing, I mentioned the possibility that in addition to the Administrative Law Judge, the claimant and myself, it is possible that a medical expert and/or a vocational expert would be present. I explained that the role of the Vocational Expert is to identify jobs that exist in the national economy that a hypothetical person with the claimant's limitations might be able to perform. Then I told the story of a recent hearing that I had, where the Vocational Expert identified the job of a Pneumatic Tube Operator! This job, which is basically that of a mail sorter, existed in large numbers 40 or 50 years ago. However, today the vocation of Pneumatic Tube Operator has been superseded by mail sorters, intra-office delivery people, intra-office computer messaging, and email. While I have seen pneumatic tubes in drive-through banks and pharmacies and at the Home Depot, people tend to use these systems while performing their 'real' jobs, whether as bank tellers, pharmacists or cashiers. This brings me to my point.

This morning I received an email from the National Organization of Social Security Representatives (NOSSCR) reporting that the Social Security Administration was investigating options moving away from the Department of Labor's "Dictionary of Occupational Titles" (where Pneumatic Tube Operator was an active job title). The problem is that the O*NET, which is the replacement product that the Department of Labor uses for their own purposes, works for them but does not meet Social Security's needs.

To that end, SSA has promulgated "Plans and Methods for Developing a Content Model," to work through the problems they see in describing jobs, and to figure out just what the physical and cognitive expectations of various jobs are and how best to present that information, so that fact finders at Social Security have all the information they need to fairly and efficiently assess claims for Disability.

Members of NOSSCR have been asked to offer input and discuss how problems presented by the aging " Dictionary of Occupational Titles" (such as listing obsolete jobs) should be addressed. I look forward to offering my thoughts as this process progresses, and I hope that the final product adopted by the Social Security Administration will be more in line with the realities of the modern job market.

Gabe Hermann