Nash Disability Law

Focus and the benefits it handles

Every part of this Chicago firm's practice points at one federal program: Social Security Disability. The site describes work on Social Security Disability Insurance, known as SSDI, and Supplemental Security Income, known as SSI. It also names SSI benefits for children and Disabled Adult Child benefits. Those four labels cover most of the ways a person qualifies for federal support when a medical condition keeps them out of work.

The four programs answer to different rules, so a firm that handles all of them reads each claim on its own terms. SSDI ties to a work history and the credits a person earned while employed. SSI looks at current income and resources. Disabled Adult Child benefits go to an adult whose condition began early in life and who draws on a parent's record, while children's SSI covers qualifying kids in low-income homes. The firm dates to 1989, when Tom Nash founded it in Chicago, and it has kept the same narrow focus since. In my opinion that kind of consistency is worth noting for anyone comparing options, because Social Security rules reward familiarity.

A single-focus practice also shapes how the firm answers a client's first questions. The people fielding a call about SSDI here handle those claims all day, which tends to shorten the distance between a question and a useful answer. That is the practical side of a firm that has stayed with one program since the late 1980s.

How a disability claim moves

Social Security Disability runs through set stages, and it helps to see where a firm like this one steps in. A claim starts with an initial application to the Social Security Administration, where a person lays out their condition, work history and medical care. Many first applications come back denied, which sends the case to a reconsideration review by the same agency. If that review also denies the claim, the applicant can request a hearing before an administrative law judge.

Nash Disability Law describes work across that path. Its attorneys evaluate eligibility, prepare the application and gather the evidence a claim needs. They appeal denied claims, ready clients for hearings and appear at those hearings alongside them. The site adds that the firm checks benefit payments after a claim is approved, which is the step many people overlook once the decision lands. That after-care detail is a small signal that the firm thinks about the client past the point of the award.

Timelines stretch the whole thing out. Reconsideration and hearing requests each carry their own deadlines, and a missed date can end a claim before its merits get a look. A firm that tracks those dates keeps a case alive while it builds the medical picture. The firm handles appeals and hearing work across that stretch of the process.

Building the medical case

A disability claim rises or falls on medical proof, and the firm lists evidence-gathering as core work. That usually means treatment records, notes from a treating doctor and forms that describe what a person can still do, both physically and mentally. The firm states that it collects medical records and other evidence as part of preparing each claim, which spares clients the job of chasing hospitals and clinics on their own.

Hearings add another layer. An administrative law judge often asks about daily routines, past jobs and the limits a condition imposes, and a vocational expert may testify about the kinds of work still open to the claimant. Preparation carries real weight here, and the firm says it readies clients before they testify. As a reviewer, I read that emphasis on preparation as a sign the firm treats the hearing as the decisive stage.

Consistency in the record helps too. When a person's own doctors and the forms in the file tell the same story about function and pain, a judge has less room to doubt it. Assembling that consistent picture is much of what disability representation involves, and the firm's stated focus on evidence points at that work.

The people on the roster

The site names fifteen attorneys. Lawrence Mabes is the managing attorney, and the home page presents him as a Chicago disability lawyer. Amy J. Altbach and Demetra D. Geller are attorneys who lead the intake team together, the point where a new case gets its first read and where the firm decides how to frame a claim.

Daniel S. Rosen practices Social Security Disability law at the firm and has represented clients at the initial, reconsideration, hearing, Appeals Council and district court levels. Those levels include the first filing and the federal district court, which is as far as a disability claim can travel. He chaired the Chicago Bar Association Social Security Law Committee for the 2013 to 2014 term, a role that puts a lawyer in regular contact with peers who argue the same kinds of cases.

Other attorneys the site names include Bob Godnik, Beth A. Miller, Jason Diaz, Spelios Bacoyanis, Israel Moskovits, Derrick Jones, Kevin Lichtenthal, Nikitas Fudukos, Aaron Goldman, Sean Mifflin-Richards and Amy McKay. The site does not publish law schools or bar admission years for the group. The firm does state that licensed attorneys represent its clients at disability hearings, which sets a clear expectation about who stands next to a client on the day.

Offices and the area it covers

Nash Disability Law keeps two offices, one in Chicago and one in Palos Hills. The Palos Hills location puts the firm closer to clients in the southwest suburbs, a practical point for people who travel to appointments while managing a health condition.

Its stated service area reaches across Chicagoland and the rest of Illinois, into Indiana, and to clients elsewhere in the United States. Social Security Disability is a federal program with one national rulebook, so a firm can carry a case for a client who lives outside its home state. The wide service area here follows from that structure, and it fits a practice that has spent decades inside the same system.

Two offices in one metro area give clients a choice of where to meet, which can matter when transportation is itself a barrier tied to the disability. The firm frames its reach around the Chicago region first, then the wider set of states it names.

What the listing supports

The firmest facts on the site are the founding year of 1989, the single practice focus and the named leadership. Tom Nash started the firm, Lawrence Mabes runs it now, and two attorneys share charge of intake. The site also states that the firm has helped thousands of people over its years in practice, a claim a reader can weigh against the length of its track record.

For someone weighing a Social Security Disability claim, those are the details worth confirming in a first call. The focus has held on one federal program since Tom Nash opened the office in 1989.