Approval rates
Comparing a judge's lifetime performance against current office and national benchmarks provides context for your upcoming hearing. Judge Scales has maintained a consistent docket over 10 years, allowing for a statistically significant view of their decision-making history. While the latest period shows a 53% approval rate, this remains 10 percentage points below the national average of 58%. Aggregate rates describe past decisions, not predictions for individual hearings.
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 Scales'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 a decade on the bench, Judge Scales has presided over 12,057 lifetime decisions. The yearly trend shows a period of lower approval rates between 2018 and 2023, followed by a shift in 2024 and 2025 where rates climbed to 58% and 55% respectively. This recent uptick suggests a departure from the previous multi-year plateau. These fluctuations often reflect changes in the complexity of cases or the quality of medical evidence presented during those specific years.
Preparing for an SSDI hearing
The guidance below applies to any SSDI hearing, not specifically to Judge Scales'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 Scales? Free, confidential — see if you qualify for SSDI.
Free Benefits ReviewAbout the Valparaiso IN hearing office
The Valparaiso IN Hearing Office serves a diverse population across the region, managing a high volume of disability claims. With 6 judges currently on the bench, the office maintains a latest-period approval rate of 58%. You can expect a formal administrative process focused on the medical and vocational evidence supporting your claim. You can see the Valparaiso IN Hearing Office page for the full ALJ roster.
Other judges at this hearing office
The Social Security Administration utilizes a workload-balancing algorithm to assign cases, meaning your assignment to Judge Scales is essentially random. Across the Valparaiso hearing office, lifetime approval rates among the 6 judges range from 41% to 65%. This variance highlights why understanding the local bench is useful, even if you cannot choose your judge. You can review the full roster on the Valparaiso IN 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.