In my law office, I always try to schedule a pre-hearing meeting with my client one to two weeks prior to my client’s hearing.  I use this meeting to discuss the “big picture” issues and to practice asking and answering questions that my client is likely to face.

One line of questioning that always comes up relates to my client’s capacity to perform various physical activities, such as lifting, sitting, standing and walking.  Physical activities like these are known as “exertional” activities by the Social Security Administration and one’s exertional capacity is almost always a factor in questions asked of the vocational witness.

For Social Security purposes, your exertional capacity is defined as follows:

Sedentary: Requires the ability to sit up to six hours in an eight hour work day, lift light objects such as files and paperwork frequently during the day, and objects weighing up to 10 pounds occasionally during the day.

Light: Requires the ability to stand up to six hours in an eight hour work day, lift up to 10 pounds frequently and up to 20 pounds occasionally.

Medium: Requires the ability to stand up to six hours in an eight hour work day, lift up to 25 pounds frequently and 50 pounds occasionally.

Heavy: Same standing as light and medium, lifting heavier than medium.

As you can see, each of these definitions includes some very specific numbers.  When you prepare to testify, you will need to be prepared to discuss your capacities.

Frequently, however, in a pre-hearing meeting I will ask my client “how much can you lift?” and I will get responses like:

• I don’t really know – I haven’t tried to lift anything heavy recently
• It depends on the day – if I am having a good day I can lift a pretty good amount, but not so much on a bad day
• My doctor says I can’t lift anything
• Not very much

I hope you can see that these answers are not very helpful.  More importantly, these answers cannot be included in a question for the vocational witness.   How much is “not very much?”  What does “I can’t lift anything mean?”

Instead, when you prepare for testifying at a hearing you need to be prepared to offer specific answers to these questions:

• I can lift 5 lbs. without too much trouble.  However, when I recently tried to lift a gallon of milk, I had to use both hands and I almost dropped it.
• I can lift 10 lbs. without too much trouble.  I don’t believe I could lift or push a 20 lb. box at all without really hurting my back.
• I usually have about 2 good days a week in which my back feels fairly loose.  I can carry a 5 lb. bag of sugar without too much trouble.  On a bad day, however, I can barely stand up straight and even 5 lbs. would cause my back to go into spasm.

You need to prepare similarly specific answers to questions about:

• how far you can walk before you have to stop
• how long you can sit before you have to stand up and move around
• how long you can stand without moving much, such as standing behind a counter

The more specific you are the better, such as:

• I can walk for about 10 minutes then I need to sit down and rest because my back will really start hurting and I will feel pain running down my right leg.  After resting for 15 minutes I can get up and walk or stand for about 10 minutes, then I have to rest again.  I would estimate that I could stand and walk for a total of about 90 minutes total during the day.
• After sitting for 15 to 20 minutes, my back starts to tighten up and I have to stand and walk around for about 10 minutes to loosen up.  Then I can sit for another 15 minutes or so.  I would then have to lie down for 20 minutes to get the pressure off my back.   I spend most days moving from sitting to standing to lying down trying to get comfortable.

At the very least, stay away from phrases like “not very far,” “not too much weight,” and “a lot less than I used to.”

In my experience judges often use your estimates of exertional capacity in their hypothetical questions to vocational witnesses.  The more specific you can be, the better.