Disability Law Commons^™

Rethinking Judicial Review Of High Volume Agency Adjudication, Jonah B. Gelbach, David Marcus

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Article III courts annually review thousands of decisions rendered by Social Security Administrative Law Judges, Immigration Judges, and other agency adjudicators who decide large numbers of cases in short periods of time. Federal judges can provide a claim for disability benefits or for immigration relief the sort of consideration that an agency buckling under the strain of enormous caseloads cannot. Judicial review thus seems to help legitimize systems of high volume agency adjudication. Even so, influential studies rooted in the gritty realities of this decision-making have concluded that the costs of judicial review outweigh whatever benefits the process creates.

We …

A Study Of Social Security Disability Litigation In The Federal Courts, Jonah B. Gelbach, David Marcus

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A person who has sought and failed to obtain disability benefits from the Social Security Administration (“the agency”) can appeal the agency’s decision to a federal district court. In 2015, nearly 20,000 such appeals were filed, comprising a significant part of the federal courts’ civil docket. Even though claims pass through multiple layers of internal agency review, many of them return from the federal courts for even more adjudication. Also, a claimant’s experience in the federal courts differs considerably from district to district around the country. District judges in Brooklyn decide these cases pursuant to one set of procedural rules …

Processing Disability, Jasmine E. Harris

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This Article argues that the practice of holding so many adjudicative proceedings related to disability in private settings (e.g., guardianship, special education due process, civil commitment, and social security) relative to our strong normative presumption of public access to adjudication may cultivate and perpetuate stigma in contravention of the goals of inclusion and enhanced agency set forth in antidiscrimination laws. Descriptively, the law has a complicated history with disability — initially rendering disability invisible, later, legitimizing particular narratives of disability synonymous with incapacity, and, in recent history, advancing full socio-economic visibility of people with disabilities. The Americans with Disabilities Act, …

Procedural Rulemaking Under The Judicial Councils Reform And Judicial Conduct And Disability Act Of 1980, Stephen B. Burbank

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No abstract provided.