Rare is the attorney or representative who feels confident to spay his cat on the kitchen table, or rebuild her automobile’s transmission in the driveway. Anybody undertaking such a complex and risky task would at least take the time to read a manual, purchase the right tools, and try to grasp the underlying principles and procedures.

If you intend to hire somebody to represent you at the Social Security Administration, and I hope you do, you should first ask about the tools the attorney or representative uses. 

I do not expect that every lawyer or representative will have every practice guide and resource. But at a minimum, I would expect that every lawyer or representative would have access to either Lexis or Westlaw and one or two current practice guides, not a left-over book from 1999. 

Also, you may wish to enquire into continuous legal education (CLE). Has the attorney or representative you wish to hire earned a significant number of CLE credits in this area of law in the past two years? If not, leave the office and hire somebody else.  

There are those attorneys and representatives who assert that they can find everything they need on the Web, without reference to any books. To this end, this web site provides current links to numerous sources, and a discussion page with a wealth of knowledge from insiders and those who practice in this field. However, what is lacking in the web's vast array of raw data is insight into how the thousands of pieces fit together. Study of comprehensive legal practice guides combined with current CLE training provides an intuitive grasp of the relationships in the raw data that cannot be obtained anywhere else.