Christine P. Benagh

Get the best!  I represent people in federal court ANYWHERE IN THE COUNTRY, after their disability benefits have been denied.

I started my legal career working for voting rights in Mississippi in the 1960s, while I was in college.  There I came to understand the tragedy of poverty in America as well as discrimination against the poor and the disabled.  I also have close family members with serious disabilities.  Since leaving law school in 1978, my career has been devoted to ensuring that the poor, the disabled, and the disadvantaged are protected by the law and receive the help that they need. 

After 20 years as a disability judge, helping people in more than 8,000 cases, I understand that the Social Security Administration wants fewer disabled people to receive benefits.  I know, first hand, that the agency pressures judges to pay fewer cases.  That is unlawful, and that is unfair.  I have seen it with my own eyes.  I represent disabled people who have been unjustly denied. 

Before I was a judge, I was a trial lawyer, and I never lost a federal appeal.  In 20 years as a disability judge, I had only 5 decisions overturned by a federal court.  I cannot represent disabled people before the agency, but if the Appeals Council at the Social Security Administration rejects your intra-agency appeal, I can use all of that expertise to help you -- in federal court, where my success rate is about 66%.

I graduated in the top 10 percent of my law school class and was on the law review.  The U.S. House of Representatives published two of my monographs.  I worked for North Mississippi Rural Legal Services, as liaision with the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights under Law, and provided active voter registration assistance to racial minorities in Mississippi, including testimony in federal court of unlawful gerrymandering and intimidation. I chaired the Sex Discrimination Committee of the Women's Legal Defense Fund and negotiated a major settlement with the United States Justice Department.  I represented consumers in multi-million dollar natural gas rate litigation, was with one of the top 50 law firms in the United States for eight years, and won a $1.2 billion dollar natural gas rate settlement for consumers.  I also chaired the Ethics Committee of the Federal Energy Bar Association and published in its law journal.  I was one of the first 100 women hired as an administrative law judge by the Social Security Administration, having achieved the highest score ever on the written examination, and was responsible for requiring the Social Security Administration to make their hearing offices handicapped accessible.  I have spoken many times on practice and procedure of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and of the Social Security Administration and remain active in community issues of poverty, disability, and discrimination.