Winifred Wetzel
Director and staff attorney
Winifred started the clinic after years of watching good disability claims fail for want of a missing record.
Winifred grew up in Clay County and practiced at a legal aid office in Charleston before starting the clinic. She takes Social Security hearings, especially for people over 50, where the rules about age and past work decide most claims. She supervises the volunteer lawyers and writes most of the clinic’s grant reports, which she says are harder than any brief.
Takes
- SSDI hearings
- Claims for people over 50
- Continuing disability reviews
Credentials
Winifred’s admissions and schooling
Bar admissions
West Virginia
2009
Courts
U.S. District Court, Southern District of West Virginia
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit
Education
J.D., West Virginia University College of Law
2009
B.A., Marshall University
2005
Languages
English
Memberships
National Organization of Social Security Claimants’ Representatives
How Winifred came to this work
Winifred’s first hearing was for a miner’s widow with a heart condition and a file that ended in 1989. The records that won it were in a closed clinic’s boxes in a church basement. She still tells new lawyers to ask where the old records went.
She started the clinic so the claims a private office can’t afford to take would have somewhere to go.
Have a hearing coming up?
Call and ask for Winifred, or for whoever is free first.