How to Answer "Work History" Questions from a Social Security Disability Judge

foreign [Music] what do you need to testify about when the judge asks you about past work when you're at your disability hearing I'm Jonathan Ginsberg I'm a social security disability attorney I represent clients in all 50 states literally from Maine to California and every place in between and if I can be of assistance to you please do reach out to me I want to talk to you today about the testimony you will give at your hearing about your past work and every hearing I do and most of them are now done by phone or video the judge will ask the claimant about past work and I want you to be prepared for this because the time to think about testifying and explaining your past work is not at the hearing when the judge asks you you have to start thinking about it because you're going to be nervous you're going to be stressed out the time to think about it is before and when I'm preparing my clients for a hearing we go over this you know days or weeks before so that we're very clear in fact I tell my clients write it down so that you'll be prepared to testify so what is a judge going to want to know well first of all the judge is going to want to know about all of your past work over the last 15 years anything beyond 15 years they're not going to be concerned about presumably Social Security recognizes that work you did more than 15 years ago really isn't all that relevant anymore because things have changed so much in our economy and certainly they have excuse me over the last few years but really we're going to be focusing on your work of the last 15 years second thing is you want to go backwards from the current time so what is the most recent job you did going backwards and what I would do is I would make a list of those jobs you want to know what the job title was what did you do you want to know the dates of employment when did you do it you want to know the name of the employers you can reference it you also want to be able to describe what you did and I think people sometimes get very caught up in job titles you know I was an assistant manager at a fast food restaurant but in fact you may have simply been a worker there and somebody gave you a title instead of giving you more money and of course that's the way it works sometimes is they'll give you a title you know assistant vice president or assistant manager would in fact you were just doing the same job everybody else does I think you want to really focus on what you did and realize for disability purposes we don't want to overstate what we do because again for our purposes we have to prove that we can't do any type of work and the less transferable skills you have the easier it's going to be to win that case and that's really what the judge is trying to find out is do you have transferable skills obviously you want to tell the truth but I've had situations where people let's say were you know made an assistant manager or or they had a supervisory role for maybe a couple of weeks three years ago and they kind of people you know they talk about it I was an assistant manager well no if it was only for a week three years ago that really doesn't count so you know people normally want to talk about you know they want to emphasize what they did and the importance of what they did and that's just human nature for our purposes you want to be very very realistic and very honest about what you did and did not do so again you may have had a good title assistant vice president or assistant manager or even manager but if in fact you were doing the regular type of Labor job that that everybody else was doing then that's really the most important thing to talk about so again you want to talk about very specifically what you did the judges are going to want to know how much you've had to lift how much you had to carry on a regular basis was it a sitting standing walking type of job all the physical functionality of the job all the mental part was it multitasking were you having to balance a bunch of things or learn new things and really think about what you did a lot of times people have a job and they do sort of the same thing over and over and over and they get pretty good at it and you want to be able to describe exactly what you did there will be a vocational witness there the judge will rely on the vocational witness to classify your past work that's part of why they're asking because the judge in doing his or her case evaluation has to go through what you did and make some decisions about whether you could go back to that or anything else or do you have transferable skills so there is a reason judges ask about your past work what you want to make sure you do is be very realistic very honest and humble about what you did don't brag about it don't over emphasize what you did that just hurts your case the better thing to do would be to really focus on the reality of what you did be as descriptive as possible and as I said I'd write it down I'd have a little chart in front of you so you can go through it ask your attorney to print out the detailed earnings statement in your social security file so you can it will remind you of the dates you worked but the more you have that ready to go it's going to save a lot of time and the last thing you want to be doing the hearing is kind of fumbling around trying to remember what you did you know 13 or 14 years ago I mean I can barely remember what I ate for breakfast two days ago much less what I was doing 15 years ago so I think it's important to really think about this and prepare this ahead of time that'll make the judge happy the judges when they're happy and they feel you're being cooperative and you're being prepared they respect that they appreciate that it's going to make things go better for you so again prepare a list of your past work with details of what you did don't over emphasize the tasks you had be very realistic about it but be prepared to talk intelligently about what you did because that is something that happens in every single hearing it should not be a surprise and if you're prepared again everything else will go better for you as well I hope you found this helpful please visit me online at ssdanswers.com that's my website I have there a place where you can request a free case evaluation I do talk to people or email people from all over the country literally every day and I'm happy to give you a case evaluation if you're not ready for that we do have a free secret swimming disability survival kit it is a downloadable comes by email a series of emails with a lot of great information that I've picked up over the years over almost 30 years now of doing this that I'd like to share with you sign up for that at ssdanswers.com and again if I can be of assistance to you in any way please reach out to me I talk to people all day long about disability I like to share what I know and again if I can help you I'd love to do that Jonathan Ginsberg here wishing you nothing but the best thanks a lot hi this is Jonathan Ginsberg and I hope you found this video helpful if you'd like to know more about how to win your Social Security disability case I'd like to invite you to download my secrets to getting approved early survival kit that I created just for people like you currently I'm making the survival kit available at no cost and I encourage you to grab your copy now some of the topics I cover include how do I know if I have a case is it the right time for me to file my claim nine common mistakes that can Doom your case the three must-have arguments you use to win your case and a topic that every disability claimant wants to know how to avoid trick questions from the judge if you or a loved one need to win Social Security Disability Benefits you'll find the survival kit essential reading download your survival kit right now and at no cost just visit ssdanswers.com backslash survival and sign up it's that easy please act now and as always I wish you the best [Music]

Channel: Social Security Disability videos

Views: 14,080

Keywords: benefits for people with disabilities, disability attorney, disability attorneys, disability benefits, disability benefits - social security, disability hearing, disability lawyer, evidence of disability, ginsberg law offices, how to apply for social security disability, how to win social security disability hearing, jonathan ginsberg, social security, social security benefits, social security disability, social security disability benefits, social security lawyer, ssdi ssi

Id: Kg-QymI-6Nk

Length: 8min 8sec (488 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 03 2023