The Law Offices of Will Snyder, PLLC

08/26/2026

I am please to announce that I have been admitted to the bar of the United States District Court for the Western District of Virginia.

08/18/2026

If you see an e-mail that looks like this in your inbox, STOP! THE E-MAIL IS A PHISHING ATTACK! DO NOT click or tap on ANY of the links in it! Do not even click or tap on the "Unsubscribe" link! Mark it as spam/junk, and delete it with extreme prejudice!

The SSA used to mail everyone reports of their SS earnings records and estimated benefit amounts (called "PEBES" statements) every few years. However, the SSA no longer does that. The SSA now recommends that persons who want to review their SS earnings records do so by establishing MySS accounts on the SSA's website and view their SS Earnings Records there.

The SSA NEVER sends sensitive personal & financial information to its customers by e-mail. Any e-mail that you receive that purports to be from SSA that provides a link(s) to or an attachment(s) containing sensitive personal or financial information is FAKE!

I am posting a link in the comments to SSA's official web page that contains information on the options to obtain copies of one's SS earnings record and statements of benefits currently being paid.

08/11/2026

Social Security Adds 14 Conditions to Compassionate Allowances List

Baltimore, MD – The Social Security Administration (SSA) today announced the addition of 14 conditions to the agency’s Compassionate Allowances (CAL) list. The CAL initiative accelerates the disability application process for individuals with serious diseases and medical conditions that meet the statutory standard for disability benefits.

The newly added conditions are:

Adenylosuccinate Lyase Deficiency – Neonatal Form and Type 1
Aicardi Syndrome
Baraitser-Winter Syndrome
Beare-Stevenson Cutis Gyrata Syndrome
Bohring-Opitz Syndrome
CASK-Related Gene Disorders
Hepatosplenic T-Cell Lymphoma
Lafora Disease
Malignant Migrating Partial Seizures of Infancy (MMPSI)
OPHN1 Syndrome
Primary Cardiac Sarcoma
Primary Intracranial Malignant Melanoma
Uveal Melanoma – with Metastases
Warburg Micro Syndrome

With the inclusion of these 14 conditions, the CAL list now includes 314 conditions in total. Since the CAL initiative began, over 1.2 million people with severe disabilities have been approved through this accelerated disability process.

“Social Security is strengthening our disability programs and making the disability determination process better, faster, and higher-quality to serve the American public,” said Commissioner Frank J. Bisignano. “The Compassionate Allowances initiative cuts through red tape and allows us to deliver support to individuals who experience life-changing diagnoses and need help fast.”

When a person applies for disability benefits, SSA must obtain medical records to make an accurate determination. The agency uses technology to identify potential CAL conditions and expedite claims processing. Although not available in every claim, through the Health IT program, SSA securely receives electronic medical records, allowing for adjudicators to make faster and more accurate decisions.

Social Security Adds 14 Conditions to Compassionate Allowances List Social Security Administration sent this bulletin at 08/11/2026 01:05 PM EDT View as a webpage / Share Tuesday, August 11, 2026 For Immediate Release Barton Mackey, Press Officer [email protected] Social Security Adds 14 Conditio...

07/14/2026

Well stated.
"Statement Addressing Threats, Retaliation and Violence Against Lawyers, Judges, Public Officials and Other Participants in Our Court System"

06/01/2026

We join the Forsyth County Bar Association in requesting that the Chief Resident Superior Court Judge and the Chief District Court Judge reconsider their decision to ban non-lawyers and non-court personnel from bringing electronic devices, including cell phones, into the Forsyth County Courthouse. As a lawyer, I see serious denial of due process of law and the N.C. constitutional right to access to the courts with an absolute ban on bringing electronic devices into the courthouse. Judges have the duty to maintain order in their courtrooms when court is in session, and limitations on non-court-related cell phone use in courtrooms themselves are absolutely necessary and appropriate. It is inherently inequitable to require visitors to the courthouse to use a pay-by-cell-phone-for-parking app to pay for parking but then to prohibit visitors from bringing their cell phones into the courthouse to manage their parking time. The burden on courthouse visitors who walk or take public transportation to the courthouse, and particularly those who do not frequent the courthouse & are unaware of the ban, is much more profound since they currently are denied secure storage facilities for their cell phones upon arriving at the courthouse. Not even banks of pay-per-use lockers are available for members of the public to use to secure their electronic devices while transacting business in the courthouse.

A total ban on bringing electronic devices into the courthouse is a blunt instrument that addresses frustrations of the judiciary with cell phones ringing, people talking on cell phones while in court, and noisy game playing & doomscrolling during court, but it does so at a disproportionate deprivation of the rights of courthouse visitors to the right of due process of law and access to the courts in today's world in which cell phone and electronic devices, even those without access to the cell phone network, are ubiquitous and relied upon members of the general public for storage and access to data as well as necessary communications.

05/01/2026

Meeting the non-medical requirements to qualify for Title XVI Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits is already extremely difficult. A disabled individual cannot have more than $2,000.00 of countable resources, and a married couple cannot have more than $3,000.00 in countable resources, or they are ineligible to receive SSI. Also, an SSI beneficiary's unearned income plus 1/2 half of the beneficiary's earned income is subtracted from the maximum SSI benefits for the year to determine the amount of SSI that is payable to the beneficiary that month.

The resource caps have not been adjusted for inflation since ca. 1972. A few years ago, the previous administration implemented changes that allowed SSI beneficiaries living in households that qualified for SNAP benefits from consideration of their SNAP benefits as unearned income. It now appears that the current administration wants to roll back that change.

The current administration also wants treat the FMV of the bedrooms of adult children 18 years of age and older who are not paying rent to their parents as unearned income and deduct the FMV from their monthly SSI benefits. The justification that the administration is citing as justifying these changes is "program integrity," which is a code word for fraud and the disdain of the current administration for severely disabled individuals who, as members of the current administration might say, still "walk & talk."

It is HARD, but not impossible with compelling evidence of seriously debilitating medical conditions and expert legal representation, for younger individuals to be found to be "disabled" within the meaning of the Social Security Act. These proposed changes, if the current administration adopts them, stand to increase the suffering and quality of life of profoundly disabled younger individuals.

A rule change pushed by White House officials would slash benefits or end support for as many as 400,000 Supplemental Security Income recipients with Down syndrome, dementia and other disabilities whose parents or relatives receive SNAP benefits.