The Hearing: Correctly Interpreting the Judge’s Questions

At the hearing, you will be serving as primary witness to your disabling condition. Part of your testimony will involve listening and responding correctly to the administrative law judge’s questions. Of course, you should ask for clarification if you are confused, but working with your Ocala disability lawyer prior to the hearing in terms of preparing the facts about your case will go a long way in ensuring that your testimony is confident and persuasive.

There is something of an inherent problem with the way in which the judge will ask you questions about your limitations in sitting, standing, lifting, and so forth. Normally, an administrative law judge will ask you the question in a simple fashion while expecting a very detailed and specific answer. For example, an inquiry into how long you are able to stand is not a question about how long you are able to stand on the job before you are incapacitated and must go home to rest. Instead, what the judge needs to know is how long you are able to remain standing upright in a work environment where you must stand, are permitted to sit and rest for a bit, and then are obliged to stand again, with the aforementioned process repeated several times throughout the full workday.

In order to give the judge as much relevant information as possible, you will want to answer the judge’s questions in several ways. You can not only state your actual work limitations, you can also share an example of when you overdid it and were forced to lie down and rest. As with any other examples of your limitations, you should explain them properly and give the situational context. Telling the judge as much in the way of pertinent details as you can will ensure that the judge’s decision will be fair to you. To find out what specific information would help your case, contact experienced Ocala disability lawyer CJ Henry.