 People often ask me why was my claim denied initially. A lot of times I believe it's simply because social security is so overburdened and so bureaucratic that they don't have the time to properly evaluate every claim. Unfortunately it's not until the end of the case when you sit down in front of a federal judge with your attorney and all the evidence that that judge gets to look you in the eyes and gets far more information than social security ever had. Initially social security by and large deals with papers. They don't sit down and speak with you. They look at the forms, they look at the medical records. The main benefit of getting an attorney involved is we help make that real for social security and we help prepare your testimony so that a judge understands what you're going through. The process to get in front of a judge can take a while unfortunately. The way social security works is this. Once you file an initial application usually you're going to get a decision within six to eight months. The bad news is that most people are denied. Social security only accepts 25 to 30 percent of their initial claims. If you are denied you have 60 days within which to file an appeal. The first appeal is the request for reconsideration. That's simply just telling social security hey you got this wrong take a second look at it. If you are denied twice that is when your case goes to court in front of a federal administrative law judge.