Attending the annual conference of Advocates, Counselors & Representatives for the Disabled in Orlando, Florida this year gave me another opportunity to parlay the trip into some time off to go birding at Kissimmee Prairie Preserve State Park. As a birder, one of the questions that I get the most, including from friends and family, is why do you go so often? Because you never know what you might find. And you never find a rare bird unless you get out in the field.
Attending a professional conference is similar. Some presentations and even days will not bear much fruit or anything new. But once in a while, I find something incredibly exciting and useful that could assist our clients. An innovation that helps our staff be more efficient, a strategy that helps win more cases, or a legal development that changes the landscape of the practice. At Keller & Keller, the firm values these professional opportunities for education and growth to get out and find something new.
At the park, I found four "lifers" (bird species that I've never seen) including the Crested Caracara. At the conference, I learned about the advocacy of the American Agency of Disability Justice (AADJ) and their efforts to end the illegal practices of third-party organizations that restrict patients' access to their own medical records. Barriers to getting medical records can prevent disabled people from proving their cases. And our firm is always out in the field looking for better ways to make sure that doesn't happen to our clients. The efforts of AADJ are an inspiring endeavor that I found that is as exciting as seeing a new species of bird for the first time. At Keller & Keller, we are part of the community that strives every day to deliver better results for our disability clients.
Written by Social Security attorney Dustin Schock
