Approval rates
Comparing a judge's approval rate to office and national benchmarks provides context for your upcoming hearing. Judge Oleyar has maintained a 48% lifetime approval rate over his 10-year tenure. In the most recent reporting period, his 54% approval rate was 2 percentage points higher than the Wilkes Barre office average, though it remains below the 58% national average. 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 Oleyar'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 10 years on the bench, Judge Oleyar has navigated a varied caseload across 14,047 lifetime decisions. His yearly approval trends show fluctuation, ranging from a low of 39% in 2020 to a high of 69% in 2023. These variations often reflect changes in the complexity of cases or the quality of medical evidence presented during your hearing.
Preparing for an SSDI hearing
The guidance below applies to any SSDI hearing, not specifically to Judge Oleyar'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 scheduled?
About the Wilkes Barre hearing office
The Wilkes Barre Hearing Office serves you and other claimants across Pennsylvania and the surrounding region. It manages a high volume of disability claims with a bench of 6 judges. The office currently maintains an average approval rate of 46%. You can see the Wilkes Barre Hearing Office page for the full ALJ roster.
Other judges at this hearing office
The SSA uses a workload-balancing algorithm to assign cases, meaning the judge you are assigned is essentially random. At the Wilkes Barre Hearing Office, lifetime approval rates among the bench range from 29% to 59%. While these differences exist, the core requirements for proving disability remain consistent regardless of who presides over your hearing.
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.