Social Security Disability Advocate's Handbook

David Traver’s sophisticated handbook will help you (1) attack vocational testimony, and (2) use the Process Unification Rulings as powerful weapons for your claimants.

Topics include:

Problems with the DOT

Learn more about the DOT in an afternoon than most VEs learn in graduate school and 25 years of practice
Use studies from the National Academy of Sciences to rip apart reliance on the DOT
Use Social Security Regulations to prove the DOT is a dead letter.
Are SVP data in the DOT reliable?
See how the Social Security Administration’s reliance on the DOT bases its adjudication system upon outdated vocational science
Why didn’t anybody weigh anything when analyzing strength demands of the jobs in the DOT?

How to attack other data sources used by vocational experts

There is no published source of data that could reliably be used to answer the typical hypothetical question at a Social Security disability hearing. Learn why.
Make the O*NET work for your client, live on your computer at the hearing
Learn how to let the air out of Vocational Expert’s “census data”
Use the Occupational Outlook Handbook to blast VE testimony in sample cross-examination testimony
Use the part-time job card to trump VE testimony about vocational sources
Track an attack on VE testimony from a pre-hearing memo to a District Court decision

Vocational information and analysis at Step Four

Stop losing cases at step-four because you don’t know what’s happening at the hearing
Was it really past-relevant work? Understand the Regulations and Rulings on-point
Does past-relevant work actually have to exist to be harmful to your client?
Show how to protect your client from the DOT and other sources of vocational information in composite jobs cases
Use the handy Transferability of Skills worksheet
Benefit from reviewing comprehensive transferability of skills examples

Vocational evidence at Step Five

Trump the VE with the Medical-Vocational Guidelines
The Commissioner does not know what a significant number of jobs is, so prove your favorite number for the record
Use occupational-based arguments to prove your case
Is a “vocational advantage” really bestowed by transferable skills in your case?
Watch out for Fast problems in your grid arguments

Transferability of skills analysis

Stop being baffled by transferability of skills questions
Make Specific Vocational Preparation work in your cross-examination
What mental abilities are needed for unskilled work?
Use vocational information to disprove transferability of skills
Master the technical language of the Medical-Vocational Guidelines
Use the Rulings to prove your Grids case
Learn from sample cross-examination of VE testimony

Practice Tips

Almost every page of the Handbook contains a valuable practice tip. Here are several examples:

Past relevant work

“A common error both ALJs and claimants’ representatives make is failing to appreciate that unless a claimant’s past work activity was Substantial Gainful Activity, it cannot be Past Relevant Work. It first is necessary to juxtapose all of a claimant’s work activity in the relevant past against the criteria of each of the Social Security Rulings listed under step one of this outline. Initially, determine whether….” §302.15

Application of circuit decisions

“Claimants’ representatives and agency adjudicators alike have been heard to say that nonacquiescence applies to all court cases for which the agency has not issued an AR. Acting under such an incorrect assumption, some adjudicators maintain they may not apply the holding in any circuit court decision which is not accompanied by an AR. Such statements evidence a fundamental misunderstanding of nonacquiescence and an erroneous interpretation of SSR 96-1p. Under nonacquiescence, SSA …. §404.1

Treating source medical opinions

“Often, ALJs decision writers and the Commissioner’s attorneys will write the treating doctor’s opinions are “not consistent” with the record. Pursuant to SSR 96-8p, the ALJ must give controlling weight to the treating source’s opinion if it is “not inconsistent” with other substantial evidence in the record. This is not merely a semantic issue. The “not inconsistent” standard presumes the opinion’s prominence and requires the ALJ to search the record for inconsistent evidence in order to give the treating source’s opinion less than controlling weight.” §502.3

Consultative exams

“It is a widespread practice among both DDS adjudicators and ALJs to arrange for consultative examinations of claimants for no apparent reason other than as an attempt to create “substantial evidence” to justify denying a claim for disability benefits. Claimants’ representatives should not acquiesce in such improper adversarial conduct. Instead….” §512.3

Treating source re-examination

“When it is apparent that a treating source’s medical opinion is not well-supported, consider requesting a consultative examination by that treating source so that the medical opinion becomes well-supported. Similarly, if the treating source’s medical opinion is inconsistent with other substantial evidence of record, consider requesting a clarification from the treating source and/or other sources with which the treating source’s medical opinion is inconsistent.” §515

Credibility

“Claimants’ representatives and agency adjudicators alike often overlook or pay insufficient heed to the critical role played by a claimant’s testimony, allegations, and credibility. Otherwise meritorious claims routinely are unsuccessful due to this oversight or inattentiveness. Because symptoms, such as pain, sometimes suggest a greater severity of impairment than can be shown by objective medical evidence alone, a claimant may be found disabled on nothing more than the strength of the claimant’s allegations—if the claimant’s symptom-related allegations are found to be credible.” §1000

Failure to follow treatment

“Because SSR 96-7p expressly delineates factors which adjudicators must consider in evaluating a claimant’s failure to seek or follow treatment, claimants’ representatives are forewarned of those issues. They should therefore attempt to direct the testimony of the claimant and lay witnesses at each of the above-listed six factors. Because the ALJ must use this testimony to assess the claimant’s credibility, carefully prepared testimony directed at establishing how each of these factors actually enhances the claimant’s credibility may preempt the ALJ’s ability to find the claimant not credible based on the claimant’s failure to seek or follow treatment.” §1014.1

"Can the ALJ do that?”

Probably not. Nearly every aspect of Social Security adjudication is governed by the Social Security Rulings

Most ALJs are unaware of the extent to which their hands are tied. You can educate them with this authoritative toolbook. Dave Traver’s Handbook shows you how to turn the Rulings into powerful weapons for your claimants:

Remind ALJs what the Rulings require with 93 “commands” to agency adjudicators excerpted from the Rulings.
Rebut common but invalid reasons ALJs use to reject claimant’s allegations.
Prevent the ALJ from rejecting a medical source statement based on the ALJ’s finding that the medical source was not aware of all the medical and other evidence in the file.
Help the ALJ find that a treating physician’s medical opinion is entitled to “controlling weight.”
Capitalize upon the provision in SSR 96-7p that the consistency of an individual’s statements is a strong indicator of the claimant’s credibility.
Using SSR 96-8p, affirm that at Step 5 a claimant cannot be found “not disabled” on the grounds that the claimant cannot perform part-time work.
Protect your claimants from DDS adjudicators’ and ALJs’ practices of arranging for unnecessary and/or inappropriate consultative examinations.
Ensure a nearly automatic finding of disability by establishing specific limitations set out on the Mental RFC Assessment Form.
Win market rate “bad faith” attorneys’ fees for nonacquiescence (SSR 96-1p).
Use the “function by function” RFC assessment requirement in SSR 96-8p to develop Step 4 and Step 5 exertional and non-exertional RFC issues.
Establish fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome as disabling impairments using SSR 96-3p, SSR 96-4p, and SSR 99-2p.
Use the testimony of the agency’s Medical Expert to establish medical “equivalence.”
Avoid greater weight being given to the opinion of the non-treating or examining physicians by giving a complete copy of the claimant’s file and obtaining a medical source opinion based on the complete record.
Use interrogatories, instead of requesting subpoenas, to reduce the weight given to the opinions of non-examining state agency physicians and psychologists.

Updated annually. ISBN 1-58021-033-4. Book Price: $119.00

Reviews

Your book has been inspirational to me. Before I got it, I was slowly learning my way through the VE testimony maze realizing there is an incredible amount of guesswork spewed as if it were scientifically derived results. Or hogwash, to be succinct. I had begun challenging the basis for VE testimony. Then you took over Wilborn's book and I found you were writing in depth on the issues I was just scratching at. It left me with no doubt that hogwash was rampantly spewed everywhere and others are way ahead of me on the issue and I can learn from them. Well, finally, a court listened to my arguments. It didn't go as far as I would like, but finally we have something in the 11th. Cir. we can cite to and build upon to take utter hogwash out of the process. Thank you for the great work you do in writing and maintaining the Disability Advocate's Handbook.
—J.G., Macon, GA

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Updated 01/08/10