Preface

• Author: Thomas E. Bush
• Pages: 20-21

F-20

Preface

How to Use This Book and Other Tips for

Improving Your Social Security Disability Practice

Learn the Five-Step Sequential Evaluation Process. The five-step Social Security disability

sequential evaluation process provides the framework for most arguments to the Social Security

Administration about your client’s disability. This book is organized around the five-step process.

See §§110-119 and 20 C.F.R. § 404.1520. Take time to learn how the five steps work. Because

the process is sequential, if a claimant can be found not disabled at any step other than step three,

the claimant does not get to proceed to the next step.

Read the First Three Chapters. If you are new to Social Security disability law, sit down and

read the first three chapters of this book. This should give you a reasonably good grasp of the

unique and often peculiar rules governing this area of practice. You can peruse the other chapters

and appendices later, as issues come up.

Use the Forms With Care. This book is absolutely filled with useful forms. The residual func-

tional capacity forms, in particular, are great time savers. You may copy these forms directly out

of the book or utilize Digital Access to adapt them for your word processing program. But beware,

forms may need to be modified to address the specific issues in a particular case. A form cannot

cover every possible situation. For example, a properly completed interview form will always

have comments written in the margins about your client’s case.

All of the forms in this book are in use in the author’s office, but we are constantly modifying

them for individual cases. Sometimes we like a modification so much, we incorporate it into the

form. If you make any especially useful modifications, we would appreciate a copy so we can

publish improvements.

Check Out the Charts. The charts provide useful summaries of disability concepts. The chart

at §121.1 summarizes rules from the Medical Vocational Guidelines. From this chart you can

quickly determine what exertional limitations a claimant must have in order to win a disability

case. The chart at §135 summarizes differences between the Social Security disability and SSI

programs. The chart at §271.1 shows how particular limitations affect ranges of work, and the

chart at §349.6 summarizes the different standards for transferability of skills for different ages

and exertional levels. The author keeps a copy of this chart in his briefcase for use in questioning

vocational experts at hearings.

Do Not Neglect the Appendices. There is a wealth of material in the appendices. The author

often begins research on disability issues with Appendix 1, an index to Social Security Rulings.

Appendix 8 is an excerpt from the manual given by SSA to medical experts to prepare them to

testify. Reading this manual may help prepare you to cross-examine a medical expert. Appendices

4 and 7, excerpts from manuals given by SSA to vocational experts, are required reading when

you are preparing to cross-examine a vocational expert (even though they were published by

SSA years ago). Appendix 5 is the complete list of unskilled sedentary occupations from the cur-

rent edition of the Dictionary of Occupational Titles. (There are so few of these occupations that

vocational experts tend to come up with other jobs which they will testify that they know from

“experience” to be unskilled sedentary occupations.) Appendix 9 is a 2007 law review article by

Professor Robert E. Rains which tackles the ethical issue that haunts all social security disability

practitioners: Must you submit an adverse medical report?