New York Social Security Disability, New Jersey Social Security Disability, New York Long Term Disability, New Jersey Long Term Disability

Our office represents workers who have sufficient months of service with a railroad company, become disabled, and want to obtain disability benefits from the Railroad Retirement Board (RRB). The claim can include disabled surviving spouses and disabled children of railroad workers. Even if you have paid into Social Security, your claim may fall under the jurisdiction of the RRB if you have enough Railroad credits.

The claims process and the standards for disability are very similar to Social Security Disability, unless you have worked in the railroad system for over 20 years. At that point you only have to prove the inability to do your regular work.

The claims process includes an initial application, reconsideration of a denied claim, and a hearing if the claim is not approved. The hearing before a Hearing Officer is typically the best opportunity to have the claim approved. There are further appeal rights if the decision of the Hearing Officer is not favorable.

While the RRB is separate from the Social Security Administration, the two systems coordinate earnings records, payments of benefits, and taxes paid. Often the Railroad Retirement benefits are greater than those that can be obtained under Social Security.

If you choose to retain our office, normally no legal fees are payable unless we are successful in obtaining benefits for you.

Railroad Retirement Board: www.rrb.gov

Our office represents New York state and local government employees who become disabled and want to make a claim for benefits under either the State Employee Retirement System or the Police and Fire Retirement System. The procedure under both systems is the same, though the types of benefits differ depending on the system and the applicant's length of service (referred to as your Tier); as well as whether or not the disability is work related.

State Disability Retirement benefits may be coordinated with Workers' Compensation benefits or Social Security Disability benefits depending on the type of Disability Retirement applied for and the applicant's tier in the Retirement System. Most often they are completely independent, so that a disabled person can get benefits from all three sources without reduction.

Although the standard for disability - the permanent inability to perform all aspects of your job description- appears simple, it can be very difficult to win a claim before the Retirement System. Their definition of an "accident" is very narrow, their doctors often will not acknowledge that a condition is permanent even though it has lasted for years and they pick their own judges to hear the cases!

We find the Retirement System to be almost the opposite of Social Security; the initial application is your best chance of success and few cases are won at the hearing level. Thus we encourage having the attorney involved from the start to help file the application and provide medical evidence. Often a claimant is eligible to file for multiple classes of Disability Benefits.

While we also file appeals if the original claim was denied, we will review the matter closely at that point because of the expense involved (typically your doctors have to be paid to testify). Our fees are structured to reflect this — we get a retainer to cover all work performed up to the initial decision and then, if hearings are held, an additional fee is due.