Mario A. Pacella, Attorney at Law:
In a Social Security case, you file an initial application with the agency. That’s usually done online. And then, if that is denied, you take it to reconsideration. And then, if that’s denied on reconsideration, you ask for a hearing in front of an administrative law judge. If the administrative law judge denies your claim, then you must appeal to the Appeals Council. And if the Appeals Council denies your claim, then you can file a lawsuit in federal court.
You must follow all of those steps before you can go to federal court. If you do not do that, the federal court will not have jurisdiction and will dismiss your lawsuit. The Social Security rules are pretty complicated.
To prove disability for someone under the age of 50 you have to show you can’t do any job that exists in the national economy on a full-time basis. That’s a very low threshold. And so, oftentimes those are denied. There are also cases where pain is really the disabling factor. Because pain is subjective we see that the best chance of success is winning a case related to pain is when you go in front of administrative law judge, because that judge, he or she, is in a position to evaluate your testimony and evaluate your sincerity before making a conclusion of whether they believe that that pain is disabling.
We see that there are non-lawyer representatives who do not file in federal court because they don’t have the right to, and then there are other lawyers, for whatever reason, choose to not file cases in federal court. And if you have one of those representatives that will not go to federal court, and you would like your case reviewed contact Strom Law Firm.
