The Law Offices of Coats & Todd

A single field of law, worked in one office

The Law Offices of Coats & Todd handles Social Security disability law and nothing else. The firm works from Plano, Texas, and takes cases across Dallas County, Denton County, Collin County, Tarrant County and the wider North Texas area. Named cities include Dallas, Fort Worth, Garland, Frisco, McKinney, Arlington, Irving and Denton.

The firm states that it has worked on Social Security disability cases for more than 20 years and has handled thousands of them for Texas clients. In my opinion, that combination of one subject and one region gives a reader something concrete to weigh. A disability claim runs on federal rules, but the hearing offices and the medical providers are local.

The site frames the client base by condition as well as geography. Claims involve physical injuries, illnesses and mental illness. Back injuries and pain disorders get specific mention.

What the firm handles

Two federal programs sit at the centre of the work: Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) and Supplemental Security Income (SSI). The firm takes claims at all stages of application filing and administrative review. Denied claims and federal SSDI appeals appear as named services in the site navigation.

SSDI and SSI claims

SSDI and SSI run on different eligibility tests. SSDI turns on work history and the credits a person has earned. SSI turns on financial need. A firm that files both has to read a client's earnings record and their household finances before the medical question even opens.

Coats & Todd lists both, and lists them together. That matters for people who might qualify under one program, the other, or both at once. The firm handles the application stage, which is where the programs first diverge.

Denied claims and appeals

A large share of initial disability applications end in denial. The firm's site names denied claims as its own service line, separate from new applications. It also names federal SSDI appeals.

Those two entries describe different work. Reconsideration and the hearing before an administrative law judge happen inside the Social Security Administration. A federal appeal moves the claim into district court, with briefing and a written record. A practice that covers both is set up to stay with a claim after the agency has said no.

The attorneys the firm names

Three attorneys appear on the firm's attorneys page: Catherine I. Coats, Christopher L. Coats and Jason Blair.

Catherine I. Coats

Catherine Coats is the founding partner. She has practised since 1992, which puts her career start well before the firm's stated 20-plus years in disability work. Her professional activity outside the office is documented in two places.

She has served as president of the Dallas Association of Social Security Claimants Attorneys. She is also active in the National Association of Social Security Claimants Representatives, known as NOSSCR. Both are membership bodies for lawyers who represent claimants, and NOSSCR operates nationally.

As a reviewer, I treat past leadership of a local claimants' bar association as a useful signal. It is checkable. It comes from peers who practise the same law in the same city.

Christopher L. Coats

Christopher Lawrence Coats took a bachelor's degree in philosophy from DePauw University in 2006. He earned his J.D. from Texas A&M School of Law, formerly Texas Wesleyan School of Law, in 2010. He graduated in the top twenty percent of his class and served on the law review.

He practises at the firm's Plano office. Before joining, he worked as an associate attorney.

Jason Blair

Jason Blair is listed as an attorney with the firm. The attorneys page carries his name among the three.

How a narrow practice reads on paper

Firms that take one area of law tend to build their processes around its particular demands. Disability claims run on medical evidence, on a five-step sequential evaluation, and on deadlines set by the agency. The paperwork is heavy and the timelines are long.

Coats & Todd describes itself as practising only Social Security disability. The scope of the site supports that. SSDI, SSI, denials and federal appeals fill the navigation, and other practice areas are absent from it.

The firm's web address, getdisability.org, matches the same single subject. In my opinion, a reader comparing several firms will find that consistency easier to assess than a long list of unrelated services.

What a prospective client can verify

The public record on this firm is specific in some places and general in others. The specific items are worth naming.

Catherine Coats's 1992 start date is a year a reader can check against state bar records. Her past presidency of the Dallas Association of Social Security Claimants Attorneys is a role that association records would carry. Christopher Coats's degrees, graduation years and law review service are the kind of detail a law school or bar profile confirms.

The firm's claims about volume sit in a different category. More than 20 years of disability work and thousands of cases across Texas are the firm's own statements about its history. They describe activity, and they say nothing about how any individual claim will turn out. Every disability case rests on its own medical evidence and its own work record.

What the site does not state

The firm's website gives no founding year. It also gives no entity suffix in the name, so the legal form of the business is unstated. Law school and admission year for Catherine Coats are absent, as are biographical details for Jason Blair beyond his name and title.

Who the office fits

The geography is straightforward. Plano sits in Collin County, and the counties the firm names form a ring around the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Clients in Denton, McKinney, Frisco, Garland, Irving, Arlington, Fort Worth and Dallas fall within the stated service area.

The claim types are equally clear. Someone filing a first SSDI or SSI application will find that stage covered. Someone holding a denial letter will find denied claims listed as its own service. Someone whose administrative appeals have run out will find federal SSDI appeals named too.

Three attorneys work at the office, one of them a founding partner with a career that began in 1992. The firm reports handling thousands of Social Security disability cases for clients throughout Texas over a period it puts at more than 20 years.