Approval rates
Comparing a judge's lifetime approval rate to current office and national benchmarks provides perspective on the hearing landscape. Judge Maccione maintains a 51% lifetime approval rate, which sits 7 percentage points higher than the latest Stockton office average of 44%. These figures are derived from a docket of 12,027 lifetime decisions. Aggregate rates describe past decisions, not predictions for your individual hearing.
Office- and national-level breakdowns of fully favorable vs denial rates aren't currently published by SSA in the per-office disposition data. The judge's own breakdown is the detail we have today.
Approval rate over time
Year-over-year approval rate across Judge Maccione's docket. Annual rates fluctuate with the mix of cases SSA assigns; the longer-run pattern is more informative than any single year.
Decision pattern
Over her 7-year tenure, your judge's approval rate has fluctuated, starting at 64% in 2016 before shifting to 41% in 2019. More recently, the data shows a recovery, with approval rates climbing to 56% by 2022. This trend suggests that recent decision-making has moved back toward her historical average. These annual shifts often reflect changes in the complexity of cases or the quality of evidence presented in a given year.
Preparing for an SSDI hearing
The guidance below applies to any SSDI hearing, not specifically to Judge Maccione's bench. Judge-specific preparation guidance requires a corpus of public Appeals Council decisions involving each judge, which we haven't built yet.
- Bring a clean treating-physician record. Longitudinal primary-care or specialist notes spanning the disability period, with consistent symptom documentation, are typically the strongest evidence at hearing. A single month's records usually aren't enough.
- Don't rely on consultative exams alone. If your medical evidence is built primarily around a one-time CE finding, expect detailed questioning. Supplement with treating-source statements where possible.
- Prepare for daily-activity questions. Have honest, specific answers about a typical day. Answers that conflict with the medical record (in either direction) tend to hurt credibility.
- Expect transferable-skills probing. A vocational expert will usually testify about jobs available to someone with your limitations. Your representative should be prepared to cross-examine.
Hearing with Judge Maccione? Free, confidential — see if you qualify for SSDI.
Free Benefits ReviewAbout the Stockton hearing office
The Stockton Hearing Office serves a significant population across California, managing a high volume of disability hearings. With a bench of 6 judges, the office maintains a latest approval rate of 44%. You can expect a rigorous review of your medical and vocational evidence. You can see the Stockton Hearing Office page for the full ALJ roster.
Other judges at this hearing office
The Social Security Administration uses a workload-balancing algorithm to assign cases, meaning your assignment to a specific judge is essentially random. Across the Stockton bench, lifetime approval rates for the 6 judges range from 30% to 83%. Because of this variance, understanding the broader office environment is as important as looking at any single judge. You can find more information on the Stockton Hearing Office page.
Your odds change dramatically with a lawyer
SSDI hearing approval rates — represented vs. on your own
Source: U.S. Government Accountability Office, GAO-18-37. The 3× gap is a population-wide average across all judges; individual outcomes vary.