Welcome to the World of Social Security Disability

This e-text is a straightforward guide with everything that the average person needs to know about Social Security Disability.

I’m Jake Ott, and I worked at one of the largest Social Security Disability law firms in the country for seven years. I have helped thousands of clients apply and appeal Social Security Disability claims. This means that I have seen first-hand how the process works. One unfortunate truth is that everyone you talk to during the process, even the friendliest and most helpful people, are motivated to sugarcoat the information they give to you, because it can be so bleak.

Here, I’m giving you everything I’ve learned about the disability process. I hope this can help you understand what to expect and increase your chances of being approved, if you are disabled yourself. If you are not disabled, you should take this information as a call to action to change the way things work. As you will see, the average person with genuine disabilities will wait years to get their first disability check, and they will struggle to survive in the meantime, since they can’t work.

This is not intended to be a strict statistical analysis, although the specific data I provide is all thoroughly vetted. My goal is not to provide you with a dispassionate explanation that covers my own backside. I want you to know what I know. That’s because, in reality, legal processes like this do not provide any certainty. Two identical cases can (and usually do) get totally different results. I hope you can benefit from knowing what I know, because it has certainly changed the way I look at our social safety nets for those that are physically or mentally incapable of working.