DISABILITY HEARINGS - AND VOCATIONAL EXPERT TESTIMONY
Charles W. Forsythe, MS
The Forsythe Firm
Social Security Representatives, Huntsville, AL (256) 799-0297
Social Security disability and the role of the Vocational Expert's testimony
When Social Security denied your disability application, you filed an appeal requesting a hearing before an administrative law judge. On the day of the hearing, you walk in to find the judge, another Social Security employee and a third person seated at the table. This third person in the room is most likely a vocational witness, also called a "vocational expert" (VE).
The vocational witness is present because he or she was invited by Social Security. He or she will have two basic functions at the hearing.
1) The VE will help the judge understand the nature of your past relevant work. Work will be classified as skilled, semi-skilled or unskilled. The exertional level of the work will be classed as sedentary, light, medium, heavy, or very heavy, depending on the exertional requirements of the job--such as lifting and carrying.
2) The VE will be given a series of "hypothetical" questions by the judge. The VE will then testify as to the availability of jobs that you can still perform, given your particular functional limitations, age, education and skill level.
The goal is to get the vocational expert to testify that there are no jobs available that you can perform. That would direct the judge to a decision that you are disabled.
Many times, however, the vocational expert will testify that there exit a few jobs that you can still perform, even with your impairments and limitations. Under the law, the witness must state some of those jobs and their titles under the Dictionary of Occupational Titles (DOT) from the US Department of Labor.
You or your representative are entitled to cross examine the vocational witness. Part of preparing for a Social Security disability hearing is to prepare for the vocational testimony. Often, I can get the vocational expert to agree that the occupational base is significantly eroded, making it extremely difficult for my client to be employed.
I recently attended a hearing where the VE testified that my client could perform a certain job and that 4,300 of those jobs were available in Tennessee. Under cross examination, I got the VE to admit that my client's exertional limitations reduced his ability to perform that work by 95 percent, which reduced the number of jobs to 2,150. When the claimant's non-exertional limitations were added, the VE testified that there was no work that he could perform.
If the claimant had gone to that hearing unrepresented, it is likely that the vocational expert's initial testimony is what the judge would have used to make a decision and the claim would almost certainly have been denied. The judge will often ask all the right questions but the job of the claimant's representative is to make sure all the right questions are asked and that the judge has accurate evaluations of the claimant's ability to work.
Charles W. Forsythe, MS
The Forsythe Firm
Social Security Representatives, Huntsville, AL (256) 799-0297
Social Security disability and the role of the Vocational Expert's testimony
When Social Security denied your disability application, you filed an appeal requesting a hearing before an administrative law judge. On the day of the hearing, you walk in to find the judge, another Social Security employee and a third person seated at the table. This third person in the room is most likely a vocational witness, also called a "vocational expert" (VE).
The vocational witness is present because he or she was invited by Social Security. He or she will have two basic functions at the hearing.
1) The VE will help the judge understand the nature of your past relevant work. Work will be classified as skilled, semi-skilled or unskilled. The exertional level of the work will be classed as sedentary, light, medium, heavy, or very heavy, depending on the exertional requirements of the job--such as lifting and carrying.
2) The VE will be given a series of "hypothetical" questions by the judge. The VE will then testify as to the availability of jobs that you can still perform, given your particular functional limitations, age, education and skill level.
The goal is to get the vocational expert to testify that there are no jobs available that you can perform. That would direct the judge to a decision that you are disabled.
Many times, however, the vocational expert will testify that there exit a few jobs that you can still perform, even with your impairments and limitations. Under the law, the witness must state some of those jobs and their titles under the Dictionary of Occupational Titles (DOT) from the US Department of Labor.
You or your representative are entitled to cross examine the vocational witness. Part of preparing for a Social Security disability hearing is to prepare for the vocational testimony. Often, I can get the vocational expert to agree that the occupational base is significantly eroded, making it extremely difficult for my client to be employed.
I recently attended a hearing where the VE testified that my client could perform a certain job and that 4,300 of those jobs were available in Tennessee. Under cross examination, I got the VE to admit that my client's exertional limitations reduced his ability to perform that work by 95 percent, which reduced the number of jobs to 2,150. When the claimant's non-exertional limitations were added, the VE testified that there was no work that he could perform.
If the claimant had gone to that hearing unrepresented, it is likely that the vocational expert's initial testimony is what the judge would have used to make a decision and the claim would almost certainly have been denied. The judge will often ask all the right questions but the job of the claimant's representative is to make sure all the right questions are asked and that the judge has accurate evaluations of the claimant's ability to work.
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