The weakness of SS Disability hearings is there is no active representative there from the party holding the purse (the federal government). The SS ALJ is there as the decision maker and so is the claimant and his or her attorney who plays the violin on behalf of the claimant.
The SS ALJ has the record made by the SS agency when the claimant filed, submitted medicals and what the agency decided when turning down the claim, plus the ALJ is supposed to know the rules and levels of disability needed to allow benefits. The claimant’s attorney can bring in new evidence, but no one on the government side is there to dispute it or develop new evidence by the time of hearing.
In state worker’s compensation cases, the party with the purse, the private insurance company or state fund can send in an attorney to develop more evidence, present it at the hearing and dispute what the claimant’s attorney is pitching. That is why Worker’s Comp is still in the black in most states and SSDI is flat broke.
That is just one of the SSDI system weaknesses. It is an antiquated system that has changed little since the 70’s.