Securing Services

Stacey Dembo’s family has a very specific rallying call: Make the world a better place for people with disabilities.

Dembo, a Social Security lawyer, fights for their rights from her solo firm in Chicago. Her brother is a researcher who specializes in disability issues. Their parents have lobbied and fundraised for the facility where Dembo’s little sister, Leslee—the family’s inspiration—has lived since she was 2.

“My sister is profoundly disabled,” Dembo says. “She doesn’t talk or walk or feed herself. She lives in a highly skilled facility. She just turned 38, and for the past 35 years I’ve watched all the ways my parents parent her. … So much of it was trying to make the world better for people with disabilities. Growing up with a sibling that has very significant needs, it informs who you are.”

As a lawyer, she only considered a practice that would fit this family mission. “I say to my clients, ‘I can’t fix the disability issues in your life, but what I can do is help you not have to worry about how you are going to pay your rent, or how are you going to get the lights on or put a roof over your head.’”

Dembo’s Social Security clients range from people born with developmental disabilities to those who acquire disabilities through work injuries, accidents, or health issues.

“I represent a lot of veterans, usually people who have been injured in the military,” she says. “Often, Veteran Affairs will say they’re unemployable, but Social Security will say that they can work. These are usually men and women with horrific post-traumatic stress problems, and it’s disheartening to see how difficult Social Security makes it for them. Those cases are really gratifying to win—to get them the benefits they deserve for their service to the country.”

Sometimes I win cases, and it takes months. … If I could fix one thing, it would be that the SSA would process our cases faster.

Dembo once represented the family of a 10-year-old boy with severe Crohn’s disease. “They had no money, and their son had to eat a very specific diet,” she says. “He couldn’t eat the food they could afford with their [Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program] benefits, which was all processed. He needed Pull-Ups but was too old to qualify for them. By winning this case and getting this family a stipend, they could buy the specific almond milk he needed, and the right undergarments so he could go to school and not be embarrassed. That really matters, particularly to a child.”

While Dembo credits former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, the current commissioner of the Social Security Administration (SSA), for making some “smart changes,” the amount of time it can take for her clients to get their benefits is a major challenge that can have tragic implications.

“Sometimes I win cases, and it takes months,” she says. “They continue to suffer. If I could fix one thing, it would be that the SSA would process our cases faster. These people have already won, sometimes after years and years and years of litigation, and then Social Security is too backlogged to pay them. It’s a travesty.”

For some, the lag can be a death sentence. “I’ve had clients die while waiting,” she says. “I hear from colleagues about their clients, who commit suicide while they’re waiting. It’s difficult to process why we can’t fix this.”

The granddaughter of a Holocaust survivor, Dembo also does pro bono work for the Jewish United Fund, a Chicago-based legal service that offers resources to survivors.

“Many survivors get reparations from Germany; my grandfather did. There’s a law that says that if you get this specific type of income via restitution, Social Security should not count it when they’re evaluating whether you qualify for benefits,” Dembo says. “It’s very common that these Holocaust survivors, who are now 90 or older and on a fixed income, they get $900 from Social Security and they’re relying on that money. Then someone in Social Security will say, ‘Oh, we see you got $1,000 from the German government, so we’re cutting off your SSI,’ which is incorrect.”

In 2025, Dembo will celebrate a decade at her firm and 17 years of doing the work she considers her calling. “This is what I’m good at, and I think I’m only getting better,” she says. “But I would like to be in a position to help even more people. I hope this is the year I’m able to grow my firm by adding another lawyer to do this important work.”