It is almost always better to appeal at levels below the social security judge. The principle reasons are (1) often you may lose some back benefits if you start over rather than appeal. (2) many cases have a better change at a hearing with the social security judge which is the third level up and you need to appeal twice to get there.

The decision to appeal versus starting over is especially difficult to make if one has been denied at the social security judge level. An appeal, if successful, often results only in the case being sent back to the same judge for another hearing-- the judge who has already denied the case. However, once the judge has denied the case the only possible way to get benefits for all the months before the judge's hearing is to appeal the case. In many cases the best strategy is to appeal from the judge's decision and to file a new case at the same time. What happens if the appeal results in sending the case back to the hearing level and a new case is started is confusing and involves hard decisions which are a frequent discussion at social security lawyer seminars.