WHO WILL CONDUCT MY SOCIAL SECURITY HEARING?

If you live in one of the counties of North Alabama, your Social Security disability hearing will be handled by either the Florence, AL Office of HearingsOperations (OHO)--or by the office of the same name in Franklin, TN. I would estimate that about 80 percent of hearings will be assigned to the Florence office and the remainder will go to Franklin. The Franklin office was designed as an overflow office to take some of the workload off other OHO offices.

The Florence, AL OHO office has 8 administrative law judges (ALJs) who hear cases. Hearings are assigned to judges at random, so you can't determine which judge you will appear before too far in advance. However, you will be told which judge is assigned to your case well before the hearing date (at least 75 days before the hearing).

The Franklin,TN OHO office has about 20 judges who hear cases. If you are assigned to a Franklin judge, your appearance will either be by telephone conference or video conference. You will not travel to Franklin for the hearing. A phone conference, of course, may be conducted from your home or from your attorney's office locally. If you are assigned a hearing via video teleconference, you will likely appear at a local Social Security office in your hometown (or nearby) for the video hearing.

For the past 2 years, Social Security has not been holding in person hearings due to COVID. As of this writing, however (October 2022), they are starting to bring back some in-person hearings. I think this will increase going forward, although some video and telephone hearings will most likely continue for quite some time.

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Charles Forsythe is an experienced Social Security disability counselor/advocate and founder of the Forsythe Firm in Huntsville, AL.