If you just went through a hearing in front of a Social Security Administrative Law Judge, you may be wondering what was going on during the latter part of the hearing, when the Judge turned to the work expert and started listing off various activities like “crouching, crawling, kneeling” and the expert responded with a bunch of numbers and codes like “’669.687-018, svp 2.” What the heck is that all about?
In a Social Security hearing, judges can call upon vocational experts to understand more about the kind of work that you may have done in the past, and whether or not any other jobs exist that could accommodate your medical limitations. First, the work (or, “vocational”) expert will talk to the judge about the kind of work that you’ve done in the past. You may have heard the term “PRW,” which stands for Prior Relevant Work. The question that the Judge needs to answer is not whether you want to go back to your prior job, or whether your prior job would hire you – rather, the question before the Judge is whether you would be able to perform your PRW on a full time, continuing basis, 8 hours per day, 5 days per week, in light of the limitations posed by your medical conditions.
If the vocational expert determines that you are unable to go back to your PRW, the Judge will then proceed to ask the vocational expert whether there are any other jobs that you might be able to do, given your age and experience, the local economy, and the limitations posed by your medical conditions. The Judge does this by posing “hypothetical” individuals for the vocational expert to comment upon. Typically, the Judge will start with describing an individual who has some, but not all, of the limitations you are alleging. Next, they will describe one or two additional hypothetical individuals with additional limitations. The work expert is likely to identify many potential jobs for the first hypothetical individual, fewer jobs for the second hypothetical, and no jobs for the third hypothetical individual. Your attorney or representative (if you had one) may have posed additional hypothetical individuals for the work expert to discuss.
Ultimately, it is up to the judge to determine which hypothetical individual he or she thinks you most resemble. If the judge finds medical support for the limitations described for the hypothetical individual for whom no jobs exist, you win your case. Having an attorney represent you at a hearing who is familiar with the acronyms and codes used by the work experts and the Judge, and who can elicit effective cross-examination of the work expert, can be very beneficial.
