Practice Area — SSDI
SSDI is an earned benefit for workers whose medical condition prevents sustained employment. Proving it on the agency's terms is the hard part — and where careful representation makes the difference.
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Social Security Disability Insurance is a federal program administered by the Social Security Administration. It provides monthly benefits to workers who have paid into Social Security through payroll taxes and who can no longer engage in substantial gainful activity because of a medically determinable impairment expected to last at least twelve months or result in death.
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Eligibility begins with your earnings record. Most adults need forty work credits, twenty of which were earned in the ten years before disability began. Younger workers qualify with fewer credits. Your insured status sets a date last insured — the deadline by which your disability must be established. Missing that window is one of the most common reasons otherwise valid claims fail.
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SSA evaluates SSDI claims through a five-step sequential process. The agency considers your current work activity, the severity of your impairment, whether your condition meets or equals a listed impairment, your residual functional capacity, and whether you can adjust to other work in the national economy.
The case is built and won in the medical record. Treatment history, objective findings, physician opinions, and functional assessments must paint a clear, consistent picture of what you can and cannot do.
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The majority of initial applications are denied. Common reasons include incomplete medical records, gaps in treatment, missing functional assessments, insufficient documentation of how symptoms limit daily activity, and onset dates that conflict with the earnings record. Many denials reflect a thin file rather than the absence of a real disability.
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Experienced representation changes how a claim is built and how it is argued. We gather the records the agency missed, request the assessments your treating providers were never asked to complete, identify the listings or vocational rules that fit your case, and prepare you for testimony so your story is heard accurately at every stage.
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If your claim is denied, you have sixty days to request the next level of review — reconsideration, then a hearing before an Administrative Law Judge, then the Appeals Council, and finally federal court. Most approvals happen at the hearing stage, and having counsel before that hearing is the single strongest predictor of a favorable outcome.
Video overview coming soon.
Next Step
Speak with an experienced representative about your situation. There is no fee unless we win your case.