Secrets to Avoiding Costly Disability Benefit Mistakes

You may be asking yourself, “This newsletter is useful, but why should I use Nash Disability Law, instead of a different attorney or representative?” A large part of the answer to that question is that we have a passion for understanding how your case profile fits into how the government system gathers information and makes decisions. Social Security disability cases are a lot like snowflakes — no two are exactly alike. And understanding the features of those snowflakes, and how to handle them, is what helps us get clients from A to B, so that in the end, we have not a beautiful snowman, but satisfied clients with monthly checks and hard- fought past-due benefits.

Clients want to know if they qualify for Social Security disability benefits, or can win their case for their particular health problems. At Nash Disability Law we are proud to say we have helped more Chicago area people win Social Security disability benefits than any other law firm. What we have learned in the course of our representation is that facts are important (we dig for them), but what is also important is how the people in the government view those facts. If you read some of our other blog items, you can tell that we get very frustrated when people within Social Security Administration (SSA) misunderstand disability clients, especially ours!

The SSA has countless rules impacting how a given claim should be viewed. Trust me, you cannot count them all! These rules and the facts associated with any given claim can relate to a person’s age, education, work history, medical treatment history, and medical opinions by doctors who have treated the client or who SSA pays to examine the client. These rules also include how long jobs lasted, how the jobs ended, what the nature of the duties were, any changes in those duties, and why. Are we there yet? No. These rules also involve the manner in which the client has approached his or her treatment options, results of testing, nuances in medical entries and even things missing from the medical records (and why). We know how to best explain your situation, and it can be different than you think.

You choose Nash because our team of passionate professionals lives the above rules every single day. We are hardly the only sharp professionals who can help with a Social Security disability claim. And we cannot win all of our cases. But one of the most disturbing things we see these days is a lot of goofy outfits chasing for people’s contact info and rolling the dice with the lives of people who deserve far better. These claims are usually one of the most important things in the lives of the given client; people deserve an honest evaluation and genuine representation. Do you want to know what one of the most important parts of the latter is — something we do that the people within Social Security are only barely familiar with? We tell people every day they do not remotely qualify for Social Security disability, and we tell them why. That’s important because Social Security is what we call a “paternalistic” bureaucracy – people in the local field office may be rude, but just as often, they act like a “father” doing what’s best for the children (citizens) by encouraging them to file an application. But the people in the local office and your well-intentioned relative or friend do not know what it takes to win. If they say they do, buy the Brooklyn Bridge from them instead. You want Nash because, while we cannot predict the future, we consider it a critical part of our job and reputation to give you an honest evaluation of your situation. Even if it hurts.

In the end, there are no shortcuts such as this problem “qualifies,” this mumbo jumbo on the paperwork will be the trick, or “I’m sicker than my neighbor and I saw the mailman dropping off his check.” Knowing you should win is very different from knowing how we’ll do it together. You need an NDL case review. One of our greatest strengths is that we have seen literally thousands of fact patterns unfold. We have deep experience with what works and what does not, including meshing our client’s particular facts with the system. We know and have battled the people running that system for so many years. At Nash, we do not just know and follow the law, we make it. When an Administrative Law Judge does not view a given client situation the way we think is right the odds are we will appeal and we have had wide success with getting the higher court authorities to agree with the positions we have taken for our clients. We like to think that success flows from our genuine passion for helping you.

Whether a case involves multiple sclerosis, special education, arthritis, mental illness, or anything else, we learn and we communicate. It gets us all to the hoop. Let’s do it!