Preparing For A Social Security Disability Hearing In North Carolina

In this article, you will discover:

• The documentation you should collect before an SSD hearing
• The questions you should be prepared to answer at an SSD hearing
• Common mistakes to avoid at an SSD hearing

What Documents Should I Gather Before The Hearing?

Your representative at the hearing will gather all the documents. The documents that are most critical to the case are the medical records. The medical records include longitudinal treatment histories showing any impairments or symptoms and how those impairments affect your activities of daily living. 

You want to ensure that all test results, MRIs and blood work are included. Quite often, medical facilities only include daily visits. 

You also need to show that if you received any income after you became disabled, that income is from some retirement account, a payout from a worker’s compensation claim or something like that. If you have any income after you allege disability, Social Security wants to make sure it’s not from showing up to work and punching a time clock. 

You may also include statements from friends or family members who interact with you describing what they see in your daily struggles as a result of these mental or physical impairments. 

How Should I Dress And Present Myself At The Hearing?

The Social Security Administration is moving toward doing more video or telephone hearings, so this is becoming less important. In terms of how you dress for a hearing, you should still give that some thought. You are in a courtroom with a judge. You want to show respect for their position and the process, so don’t show up in torn jeans and sneakers or Budweiser t-shirts. Show the proper deference.

At the same time, you’re looking to be consistent. If you claim you have difficulty bathing, showering and taking care of yourself, you probably don’t want to wear a perfectly pressed suit with your hair, makeup and nails done. That would indicate that you’re more capable than what you’re alleging in your claim or medical records. 

You don’t want to be in a situation where the judge thinks, “I would love to hire this person. This person is fantastic.” That would defeat the purpose. In essence, dress in a way that is respectful yet does not leave the judge wondering how disabled you are. 

What Questions Should I Be Prepared To Answer During The Hearing?

Sometimes, the judge wants to ask questions, and sometimes, they leave it to the representative to ask the questions. Judges almost always ask administrative questions to ensure they have the right person in the room. 

These are questions such as: How old are you? What’s your date of birth? What’s your Social Security number? Where do you live? What is your employment history? It’s about a 50-50 split between judges who ask the disability questions or leave them to the representative. 

If you’re alleging you can’t work, you want to know and be prepared to answer questions about:

• Your diagnoses
• Who your doctors are
• What your treatment history has been
• What treatment worked
• What treatment failed

Most importantly, you should be able to articulate how those impairments affect your daily living or any work activities. For instance, you want to know how much you can lift or carry. How long can you stand? How long can you walk? Could you push something in an eight-hour day? What are you able to do and not able to do? 

Ultimately, the impairments you’re alleging must result in reduced functioning for the judge to give you a fair shot at the decision of whether you’re disabled.

Attorney Justin Wraight is a seasoned lawyer based in North Carolina who has helped countless clients just like you navigate the intricacies of Social Security Disability law. With more than 20 years of experience, he is prepared to assist you in preparing for your Social Security Disability hearing so you can get just compensation for your work-related injury.

Still have questions? Ready to get started? Contact Cardinal Law Partners today to schedule an initial consultation.

How Does A Social Security Disability Hearing Play Out?

The hearing always starts with a court reporter identifying everybody in the room or on the phone call. They identify you and your representative. They let the judge know that everyone’s available. Almost always, a vocational expert is present. They testify at the end, if at all.

The judge will then start by asking you administrative questions. He’ll also want to talk with the representative and make sure that all the evidence is in the record and that the record is complete in terms of all the exhibits the judge will refer to in making a decision.

Further questions will be asked regarding your disability and limitations and how these affect activities of daily living or work functioning. 

Once your testimony is over, the judge will often question the vocational expert. The vocational expert will testify about several things. They will testify about your past work history as defined by the Dictionary of Occupational Titles and try to determine the physical and mental requirements of the past work. 

The judge is going to ask, based on the testimony and the medical evidence, whether you can do your past work. If you can’t do the past work, the judge must sort out whether you can do any other job in the national economy that exists in significant numbers.

If the judge is going to deny you, they must demonstrate there are jobs available within your functional capacity evaluation and whether those jobs are available. The fight is rarely over, depending on whether there are jobs available. 

The fight is now: What is the appropriate functional capacity evaluation? Can you do sedentary work? Can you do light work? Can you do medium work? Do you have work skills from your past that can be transferred to these other jobs? 

At the end of the hearing, your representative can question the vocational expert. Hearings, if they’re run fairly, will usually last between 30 minutes to an hour because the evidence in the case is already in the record. Those records are where the stories are best told about what the doctors say or what the objective medical testing shows. Usually, that paperwork is where you want your strongest case to be. 

A Common Mistake To Avoid During The Hearing

During a hearing, you should avoid exaggeration in your testimony. You’ve waited as much as two years to get in front of the judge. You want the judge to understand how difficult it is to manage your symptoms and understand everything that you’re going through. 

For example, a claimant might be asked: “On a scale of one to 10, what is your pain level today?” Rather than saying eight or nine as a way to communicate it’s severe, the claimant may say “15,” “20,” “off the charts,” or they’ll say “100.” The idea is well taken that they are in severe pain. 

However, it’s hard for the judge to accept that objectively because the answer has to be between zero and 10. An answer outside that range doesn’t give the judge any new information or a new understanding of the severity of the pain. That response also shows that the claimant is not answering the question directly or they are exaggerating.

If you’re a judge, one of your duties is to assess someone’s credibility. By not answering a simple question, you’re missing an opportunity to give the judge some honest information and putting your credibility into question. To avoid that whole scenario, don’t exaggerate. 

Just because the answer to a question might not help your case, it rarely destroys it. You’re better off holding onto your credibility by explaining as best you can without exaggerating.

How Do You Help Clients Manage Their Anxiety Or Emotions Leading Up To And During The Hearing?

As a representative, I explain to you what you’re in for. If I’ve had the judge before, I’ll try to explain what the judge looks like, how they behave, and how they ask questions. Most people with anxiety want to know what they’re walking into. 

If you are alleging anxiety, depression, or some other kind of mental limitation, practicing excessively for a hearing could hurt your case. We don’t want the presentation in front of the judge to differ from what the medical records show. 

If you are uncomfortable, anxious, or become teary-eyed in the natural course of your day-to-day life, it may be helpful for the judge to see this during a hearing. That kind of honest response to a stressful situation isn’t bad. 

Case Study: A Client Who Successfully Overcame Their Anxiety And Had A Positive Outcome

I can tell you a lesson I learned from my very first hearing. I had a claimant who was struggling with anxiety and other mental limitations. I wanted them not to be nervous. I also wanted them to tell the truth and get the information critical to the case out. 

I must have practiced the hearing questions with that claimant seven or eight times over the phone and in person, which was great because the claimant didn’t have as much anxiety as I thought they would. They seemed to be comfortable. 

The problem was that the claimant was so comfortable with the answers that they answered questions before I even finished asking them. Because it was overly prepared, it looked rehearsed and over-organized, to the point where I wondered if that judge was concerned that my client’s answers weren’t organic or that their anxiety wasn’t genuine.

What saved us was that although my client did well with answering my questions, they did show some anxiety answering some of the judge’s other questions. The judge was able to get a more accurate picture of what to expect in a work environment from their questions rather than the ones that I asked, but I did learn a lesson: If you have anxiety, and that’s part of the reason why you can’t work, there’s no reason to hide it. There’s no reason to pretend it doesn’t exist, especially if it’s showing up in your medical records. 

There is a way to properly prepare for the hearing without hiding an impairment, especially if that impairment might be the medical condition the judge accepts in finding someone disabled. 

Still Have Questions? Ready To Get Started?

For more information on preparing for North Carolina SSD hearings, a free initial consultation is your next best step. Get the information and legal answers you are seeking by calling (833) 444-4127 today.