Louisiana social security disability
Louisiana Disability Lawyers: Two of the Four Offices Deciding Your Claim Sit Six Miles Apart, and the Capital Has Neither
Four Social Security hearing offices decide Louisiana disability claims. Two of them, New Orleans and Metairie, sit within a few miles of each other in one metro area. Baton Rouge, the state capital, has neither and is heard at Metairie, about eighty miles east.
The other two are Alexandria in the center of the state and Shreveport in the north. Louisiana's routing is worth reading before your notice arrives, because more of it runs against the map here than in most states, and the office you expect is often not the office you get.
4
Hearing offices deciding Louisiana claims
0
Of them in greater New Orleans, none in Baton Rouge
Under a year
Typical wait from hearing request to hearing held
$0 upfront
No fee unless you win
Where your case is decided
Which Louisiana Hearing Office Decides Your Disability Claim?
Baton Rouge, the capital and the second largest city in the state, is heard at Metairie.
The office that hears your Louisiana case is chosen by the Social Security field office serving your address. It does not follow parish lines and it does not follow driving distance.
Three assignments catch people out. Baton Rouge, the capital and the second largest city in the state, is heard at Metairie. Lake Charles sits in the far southwest and is heard in New Orleans, although Alexandria is closer by road. Lafayette is heard in Alexandria rather than in New Orleans. Monroe, in the northeast, goes to Alexandria rather than to Shreveport.
Louisiana sends work across two state lines and takes work back across both. Shreveport hears claims filed at Texarkana, which the locator files under Arkansas, and at Marshall in Texas. Alexandria hears claims filed at El Dorado, which the locator files under Louisiana. Wherever the file lands, a denial notice starts the same sixty-day clock.
The four offices
Every Office That Decides Louisiana Disability Claims
Hearing offices
4decide this state's claims
Service area lines name Social Security field offices rather than cities or parishes, which is how the assignment is actually made.
Four hearing offices decide Louisiana claims: Alexandria, Metairie, New Orleans and Shreveport. Shreveport also takes claims filed in Arkansas and Texas.
Every field office assignment and office address is on our hearing office routing page.
Average wait times change from month to month. Social Security publishes the average wait time for each hearing office and updates it monthly, so check the office that takes your claim.
Before any judge sees it
Who Decides Louisiana Disability Claims Before a Judge Does
Social Security takes the application and decides the non-medical parts, then sends the file out for that review and takes it back.
The medical decision on your claim is not made by Social Security and it is not made at a hearing office. A Louisiana state agency makes it under Social Security's rules and at its expense, gathering your records and applying the federal definition of disability to them. Social Security takes the application and decides the non-medical parts, then sends the file out for that review and takes it back.
The stage matters more than it looks, because most claims are settled there rather than in front of a judge, and because the file a judge eventually reads is the one built during it. The office that will hold your hearing has no involvement at this point and does not yet know your case exists. Where you file is what connects the two.
What the office map actually tells you
Why Louisiana's Hearing Offices Cluster in One Corner of the State
Half of Louisiana's hearing offices are in greater New Orleans. New Orleans and Metairie are close enough that a claimant could pass one on the way to the other, and between them they cover the southeast, the capital region, and a stretch of the southwest running to the Texas line.
Alexandria and Shreveport carry everything else. Alexandria's service area alone runs from Lafayette and New Iberia in the south to Monroe and Ruston in the north, and across the border into Arkansas. That is a large territory handled from a city of about forty five thousand people, and it is the reason so many central and southern Louisiana claimants find themselves assigned somewhere they did not expect.
None of that changes the standard applied to your file, and none of it is a disadvantage in itself. What it does mean is that guessing your hearing office from a map will be wrong more often in Louisiana than almost anywhere, and that the answer is worth getting early rather than at the moment a notice arrives.
Cities we serve in Louisiana
Louisiana Cities We Serve
We represent claimants across Louisiana. The three cities below have their own pages. The hearing office for any address is on the routing page.
Louisiana SSDI Questions: Hearing Offices, Routing and Appeals
Is there a hearing office in Baton Rouge?
No. The capital and second largest city in Louisiana has no hearing office of its own, and its claims are assigned to Metairie. There are four offices in the state, at Alexandria, Metairie, New Orleans and Shreveport, and two of those four are in the same metro area at the other end of the Baton Rouge to New Orleans corridor.
Why is my Baton Rouge claim heard in Metairie?
Because the Baton Rouge and Baton Rouge North field offices are assigned to the Metairie hearing office, roughly eighty miles east. Baton Rouge is the state capital and the second largest city in Louisiana and it has no hearing office of its own. Metairie's service area is built around Baton Rouge, Hammond, Bogalusa and Kenner, so in practice it functions as the Baton Rouge area office despite sitting in the New Orleans suburbs.
Lake Charles is in the southwest. Why is my case in New Orleans?
Because the Lake Charles and DeRidder field offices are assigned to the New Orleans hearing office, even though Alexandria is closer by road. Social Security drew these service areas around its own field office network rather than around driving distance, and southwest Louisiana ended up attached to the coast rather than to the center of the state.
Two Louisiana offices are in the same metro area. Is one of them faster?
It changes month to month. Social Security publishes the average wait for every hearing office and updates it monthly, and New Orleans and Metairie have traded places before. Even if one were reliably quicker that is not a reason Social Security would move a case, because the assignment follows your field office and a transfer turns on good cause rather than on speed.
Can I ask to be heard at the office closest to me?
Not by preference. The assignment follows your field office. You can ask Social Security to hear the case at a different office, with the reason in writing, and it decides whether to transfer it. In Louisiana that request would come up more than most places, because the office that hears you is often not the nearest one, but the answer does not change. What is worth your attention is the record the assigned office will read.
What happens after Louisiana denies my application?
A denial is a stage rather than a verdict. You have sixty days from the date you receive it to appeal, and Social Security assumes you received it five days after the date on the letter. The appeal goes back through the same state agency that issued the denial before it reaches a judge, which is why appealing with nothing new attached usually produces the same answer.
Denied in Louisiana? Let us look at it.
Free case review, no obligation. We respond within 3 business hours. We represent Louisiana claimants from our office in Lebanon, Tennessee, with consultations and hearings handled by phone or video. There is no Louisiana office and none is implied. Tell us where you filed and we will tell you which office your address routes to.