I'm no expert in this, but from what I've observed it is probably good to enter with the mindset that you are going to initially lose, but that's not reason to dismay, it's reason to see your task as creating an impeccable appellate record.

yeah i went through this recently (still not approved) had a lawyer friend i talked to that used to do a lot of disability cases, told me you almost always lose first application so don’t bother lawyering up before that first rejection

Can confirm having gone through it myself. Even the company helping me with my application said that step one is to submit your application so they can rubber stamp reject it and then you go to step two which is submitting again. Took me 3 times to finally get approved.

I know when I went for SSDI at 32, I was told they automatically reject everyone under 50 and to expect to have to appeal (that is exactly what happened)

💜💜 love this - my mom knew she’d almost certainly be denied the first time so she saw that one as like getting it out of the way

This how it went for my partner. It took her the better part of a decade and multiple appeals. My understanding is that this is very normal.