Approval rates
Comparing a judge's performance to broader benchmarks helps you understand the environment of your upcoming hearing. Judge Marzan currently holds a 68% approval rate in the latest reporting period, which is 5 percentage points higher than both the Tampa Hearing Office and the national average of 58%. With a decade of experience and 17,899 decisions, the data provides a stable look at past outcomes. 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 Marzan'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 10 years on the bench, Judge Marzan has shown a dynamic trend in her approval patterns. After an initial period of fluctuation, the data shows a notable upward trajectory in recent years, with approval rates reaching 73% in 2025. This recent performance indicates a shift from her earlier career averages. These trends often reflect changes in the complexity of cases or the quality of evidence presented, and the latest period reflects a continuation of this steady, higher-approval pattern.
Preparing for an SSDI hearing
The guidance below applies to any SSDI hearing, not specifically to Judge Marzan'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.
Other judges at this hearing office
The Social Security Administration assigns cases through a workload-balancing algorithm, meaning your assignment to a specific judge is essentially random. At the Tampa Hearing Office, the bench consists of 6 judges with lifetime approval rates ranging from 48% to 70%. Because each judge brings a unique perspective to the courtroom, understanding the office-wide environment is helpful. For preparation purposes, the guidance remains consistent regardless of which judge you are assigned.
Your odds change dramatically with a lawyer
Source: U.S. Government Accountability Office, GAO-18-37. The 3× gap is a population-wide average across all judges; individual outcomes vary.