Naturally, the way the system works, this doesn't mean the ruling is overturned and I win; it means the case goes back to the admin law judge (hopefully not the same one...?) for further examination. Said judge will probably order a second hearing, but all the notification I got today says is that a judge will notify me as to what I have to do next. It doesn't say when this will happen. It might be another year. Who knows nowadays?

Oh yeah, I think I forgot/couldn't bear to get into this last summer, but remember how my attorney moved away and his replacement didn't get back to me for weeks? I finally called her, a day or two before the deadline to appeal the hearing ruling, to ask whether she had done so. She seemed annoyed and clearly had forgotten all about me, then gave me a testy and patronizing explanation that she hadn't automatically assumed all of my previous attorney's cases,* but was in the process of deciding which ones to take up, and thus she had "no ethical responsibility" (her phrase) to take on mine. Which she had decided (right at that moment, I'm pretty sure) not to do.

* you know, like someone assuming someone else's workload at any other kind of business would do?

So I filed the appeal on my own recognizance on the last possible day it could have been filed, and I don't have a lawyer any more. I asked the one attorney I more-or-less know personally (who isn't That Kind of Lawyer) if she knew anyone who did that kind of work, and she said she didn't personally, but recommended a firm in Portland. I called them, but they only do VA disability work, not SSDI cases for civilians. So that was a dead end.

TLDR: My SSA disability case is still alive, apparently, but given the rate at which this system works, does it matter in any practical terms? I don't know. Given the way things have been going lately, I suppose I should take any fragment of good news I get, however small and tenuous.

--G.
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Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.