Key Facts to Know About Your Dallas-Fort Worth/North Texas ALJ Hearing
The administrative law judge hearing is an critical event in the social security disability appeal process. (See Social Security disability appeal process for a detailed discussion of the disability case process).
Your ALJ hearing is usually the first opportunity to explain to a real person why their medical condition keeps them from working.
Texas disability claimants must have been denied disability benefits from the Disability Determination Services in Austin Texas both at the initial and the reconsideration level before they have the right to an administrative hearing.
Administrative Law Judge hearings are conducted by the Office of Hearing Operations (OHO), not the Social Security Administration District Office you may be familiar with. Disability claims are assigned to an Office of Hearing Operations based the social security district office that is responsible for the claim.
North Texas social security disability claimant disability hearings are held before ALJs based in the above offices:
- Dallas “Downtown” OHO Office
- North Dallas OHO Office
- Fort Worth OHO Office
As a Texas based attorney Stanley Denman is familiar with all the ALJs in the 2 Dallas OHO offices and the OHO office in Fort Worth. While ALJs generally applying the law uniformly, each Administrative Law Judge has particular aspects of the disability claim that he or she wants presented at the hearing. Attorney Stanley Denman’s years of experience working with these ALJs on a daily basis increases your odds of a favorable outcome.
There are 4 “manners of appearance” in your North Texas ALJ hearing: in-person, via phone, agency video or online video
Until the the Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic nearly all ALJ hearings were in-person. During the pandemic hearings via phone or video were offered. If a claimant wanted an in-person ALJ hearing their request remained pending until the crisis passed.
Now ALJ hearings can be conducted in one of 4 ways:
- agency video
- online video
- audio (phone)
- in person
When a request for an ALJ hearing is made the district office transfers the case to the appropriate OHO office. The OHO office then sends a notice to you entitled “Notice of Ways to Attend a Hearing“, Form HA-L54. In that letter you will have two forms that you need to complete and return to the OHO office:
- HA-55 (Objection to Appearing by Audio or Agency Video)
- HA-56 (Agreement to Appearing by Online Video)
Claimants have 30 days after receiving the hearing notice to consent or object to a remote appearance. Meeting this deadline is extremely important if you want an in-person hearing. That is, if you want an in-person hearing you must handle these two forms as follows:
- Check both of these boxes on the HA-55:
- “I DO NOT want to attend by Audio (using a telephone) in a private location”.
- “I DO NOT want to attend by Agency Video using agency video equipment in an agency office.”
- DO not return the HA-56 (ignore it)
Once a case is assigned to an ALJ – particularly if a video or audio hearing has already been set – it is within the judge’s discretion to reschedule for an in person hearing if you have failed to complete and return the HA- 55 as set out above within 30 days. Anecdotally I have heard from Social Security disability attorney colleagues in other parts of the country that many ALJs simply will refuse to recognize a preference for an in-person hearing if it is not timely made.
My own personal preference as a Social Security disability attorney of 35+ years is for in-person hearings. There is a widely held belief out on the Internet that it takes longer to get an in-person hearing. I have seen no evidence that this is the case in my practice. The basis for my preference for in-person hearings is simple: human nature would dictate that it is simply easier to turn somebody down when you’ve never met them, never observed them, or never created even the modest bond of talking face-to-face.
It is also possible that with a audio or video hearing that the case could get assigned to an ALJ in an OHO office in another part of the country. This limits a local disability attorney’s ability to utilize their personal experience with the ALJ as they are unlikely to know judges in a distant OHO office.
Claimant’s should also take care in making this manner of appearance decision to be aware of the type of representative they have. It has been my observation that large national Social Security disability firms push their claimants to accept a video or phone hearing. This I fear is based upon their own convenience since it is hard to send a representative out to many OHO locations in the country. Many of these national firms in my observation have been incorrectly advising claimants that video or audio hearings will occur more quickly then an in-person hearing.
This is not to say that I think there is anything wrong with audio or video hearings. I would acknowledge that the advantage of an in-person hearing may be marginal. It is in my view a benefit nonetheless.
The Administrative Law Judge Hearing Is Often Your Best Chance to Win Your Texas Social Security Disability Case
Here are some important statistics about allowance rates at the major stages of a Social Security disability case:
- Initial application: roughly 1 in 3 decisions result in an allowance.
- Reconsideration: roughly 1 in 6 decisions result in an allowance.
- ALJ hearing: roughly 1 in 2 dispositions result in an allowance.
The important takeaway is that the ALJ hearing is a critical stage of the Social Security disability appeal process. The overall statistics include claims of widely varying strength. They do not predict the outcome of any particular case. The quality of the medical evidence, the severity of the claimant’s functional limitations, and how well the case is developed and presented remain critically important.
The particular Administrative Law Judge assigned to your case can also be an important factor. Social Security publishes disposition data for individual ALJs, and allowance rates vary significantly from judge to judge. Some ALJs allow a very high percentage of the cases they decide, while others allow a much smaller percentage.
These statistics should not be viewed as a prediction of what will happen in any individual case. Different judges may handle different types of cases and workloads.
One conclusion, however, is clear from Social Security’s own statistics: the ALJ hearing is generally the stage of the disability appeal process at which a claimant has the greatest likelihood of receiving a favorable decision.
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Your ALJ hearing is not a “trial”
The Administrative Law Judge hearing is “non-adversarial”: there will not be a lawyer representing the government, and formal rules of evidence do not apply. Rather the ALJ hearing is a “fact-finding” inquiry. It is also a “de novo” – a new – inquiry into your claim. The ALJ is not bound by the decisions social security made at the initial and reconsideration stages of your appeal.
Many trial lawyers have trouble adjusting their aggressive styles honed in adversarial trials to the more collegial, “meeting style” required in the administrative law hearing.
The ALJ hearing wait no longer represents the biggest “log-jam” in the Social Security Disability Appeal Process
I have represented Social Security disability claimants since 1991. For much of my career, waiting for an ALJ hearing was one of the longest parts of the disability appeal process. A wait of a year or longer for a hearing was common.
That has changed dramatically. In my recent Texas cases, I am frequently seeing hearings scheduled approximately four months after the request for hearing. At the same time, delays at the initial application and reconsideration levels have become much more significant.
The exact processing time for any particular disability claim will vary. But in my practice, the long delay that once occurred primarily at the ALJ hearing level has increasingly shifted to the earlier stages of the disability determination process.
In all likelihood, there will be a “vocational expert” (VE) who will testify in your ALJ hearing
Vocational experts routinely testify at Social Security disability hearings. There is widespread confusion about the VE’s role. The VE is not the person who decides whether you are disabled. That decision belongs to the Administrative Law Judge.
The vocational expert assists the ALJ in answering several important vocational questions:
- How should the work you performed during the past five years be classified under the Dictionary of Occupational Titles?
- What were the physical and mental requirements of that work?
- Given a particular assessment of your residual functional capacity (RFC), could you return to any of your past work, either as you actually performed it or as that work is generally performed?
- If you cannot perform your past work, are there other jobs existing in significant numbers in the national economy that you could perform given your RFC and other vocational factors?
Typically, the ALJ will ask the vocational expert a series of hypothetical questions involving different RFC limitations. The questions may begin with relatively modest restrictions that result in testimony that work could still be performed and then progress to increasingly restrictive limitations that result in testimony that no work could be performed.
Your attorney is also given an opportunity to question the vocational expert. An experienced Social Security disability attorney understands which limitations are particularly important vocationally and can ask the VE whether additional limitations supported by the evidence would eliminate the jobs identified in response to the ALJ’s questions.
It is important to understand, however, that the attorney cannot simply invent limitations and ask the VE to assume them. Ultimately, the limitations that matter must be supported by the medical and other evidence in your disability claim.
The ALJ will assess your “credibility”: Does she believe your statements about the extent of your condition
Years ago, Social Security described this part of the disability decision as an assessment of the claimant’s “credibility.” Social Security no longer uses that term. It is likely “credibility” was perceived by the Social Security Administrationas being offense to people: over the years I have certainly seen in my few denials that claiments were particularly offended by a judge’s finding that they are “not credible”.
Under Social Security Ruling 16-3p, the ALJ is not supposed to decide whether you are generally a truthful or untruthful person. Instead, the judge evaluates whether your statements about the intensity, persistence, and limiting effects of your symptoms are consistent with the medical evidence and the other evidence in your case.
As a practical matter, however, whether the ALJ accepts what you say about your symptoms remains extremely important. If you testify that pain prevents you from standing for more than 10 minutes, for example, the ALJ will consider whether that statement is consistent with your medical records, treatment history, daily activities, medications, statements you have made at other times, and the other evidence in your file.
So while Social Security no longer calls this a “credibility” determination, the basic practical question remains extremely important: to what extent will the ALJ accept your statements about the severity of your symptoms and the limitations they cause?
The administrative law judge will not announce her decision at the hearing
The Office of Hearing Operations discourages Administrative Law Judges from announcing their decision at the close of the hearing. A small minority of ALJs nevertheless announce their decision if they intend to approve the claim. Almost no ALJs announce their decision during the hearing if they intend to deny the claim. Most experienced social security disability lawyers, however, will have a good sense after the hearing as to whether the claim will be approved.
On average, it takes between 2 to 4 months for a decision to be prepared and sent to you and your representative by mail. The decision will either be “Fully Favorable”, “Partially Favorable” or “Unfavorable”.