At Expert Vocational Insights, we believe work is about more than a paycheck. It is about identity, purpose, and the quiet pride that comes from building something for yourself and the people you love. Every person who comes to us carries a story. Some are recovering from injury, rebuilding after loss, or navigating a disability that has changed everything they thought they knew about their future. Some are young people stepping into adulthood for the first time, or veterans who gave everything and now fight for what they deserve. Whatever brings them here, we meet them with patience, respect, and a genuine belief that their future is worth fighting for. We listen before we act, ask questions before we draw conclusions, and take time to understand not just what someone can do, but who they are and what matters most to them.
When the path forward requires clear, credible answers, we deliver them. Our vocational assessments, labor market surveys, earning capacity evaluations, and expert testimony are thorough and defensible, because the people behind these cases deserve analysis that holds up when it counts most. And when someone needs more than a report, we walk alongside them. Through supported and customized employment, job coaching, career progression mapping, Pre-Employment Transition services, work and personal adjustment training, occupational therapy, functional capacity evaluations, ergonomic assessments, work conditioning, cognitive training, and benefits counseling, we address the whole person, meeting both the practical and emotional barriers that stand between where someone is and where they deserve to be.
We sit with families in hard conversations. We watch people walk into jobs for the first time and stand a little taller. We see uncertainty give way to direction, and fear give way to confidence. Those moments are why we do this work. Wherever people need us, in a courtroom, a classroom, a workplace, or a conversation about what comes next, we show up with integrity, compassion, and an unshakable belief in what is possible.
Our Services
We work with Division of Vocational Rehabilitation, Medicaid, Medicaid SLS and DD Waivers, Medicare, TriWest, and Pinnacol
Vocational Assessments and Rebuttals
A vocational assessment is often the starting point for everything that follows. It establishes a clear, honest picture of who someone is vocationally: their work history, education, transferable skills, and functional limitations. That foundation shapes the entire service plan and helps counselors make confident, defensible decisions about the support and training a person needs.
In legal settings, vocational assessments are frequently requested in workers’ compensation, personal injury, and divorce cases to evaluate how a disability, injury, or life change has affected someone’s employability. When opposing experts produce assessments that overstate or understate vocational capacity, we prepare thorough rebuttals grounded in methodology, labor market reality, and the individual’s actual functional profile. Our reports are built to hold up under scrutiny.
Labor Market Surveys and Rebuttals
Labor market surveys are a critical tool in determining whether jobs identified as suitable for an individual actually exist in meaningful numbers within their geographic area. This research helps confirm that a vocational goal is realistic and achievable, not just theoretically possible on paper.
In litigation, labor market surveys carry significant weight. When an opposing expert claims a claimant can perform a range of occupations, those claims need to be tested against the real world. We contact actual employers, verify job requirements, confirm hiring practices, and document what the local market truly looks like. When surveys produced by the opposing side are flawed, inflated, or methodologically weak, we produce detailed rebuttals that expose those shortcomings and restore accuracy to the record.
Benefits Counseling
Benefits counseling is one of the most impactful services we offer. The fear of losing SSI, SSDI, Medicaid, Medicare, Veterans Benefits, SNAP, or any other benefit coverage keeps too many people from pursuing employment at all. We walk individuals through the work incentives available to them, explain exactly how earnings will affect each benefit, and help them build a plan for entering or returning to the workforce without financial catastrophe. Understanding the rules transforms fear into informed decision-making.
Earning Capacity Evaluations
Earning capacity evaluations are most commonly requested in legal proceedings where the financial impact of an injury, disability, or life event is in dispute. In workers’ compensation cases, personal injury litigation, and divorce proceedings, the question of what someone could have earned versus what they can now realistically expect to earn is often central to the outcome. We examine vocational history, transferable skills, medical and functional limitations, and current labor market conditions to produce an objective, well-supported opinion on earning capacity, both before and after the relevant event. Our evaluations are thorough enough to withstand deposition and cross-examination, and clear enough for a judge or jury to understand.
Job Coaching
Job coaching is often the bridge between job placement and real, lasting employment. Starting a new job is hard for anyone. For someone managing a disability, mental health condition, or significant barrier to employment, it can feel overwhelming without the right support in place. Our job coaches work alongside clients at the job site, helping them learn tasks, understand workplace expectations, navigate relationships with coworkers and supervisors, and build the routines that make employment sustainable. Support is tailored to each person and faded gradually as independence grows.
Ergonomic Assessments
Ergonomic assessments are valuable both in return-to-work planning and in ongoing employment support for individuals with physical disabilities or chronic conditions. An ergonomic assessment can identify modifications to a workstation or workflow that make the difference between a placement succeeding or failing. We examine the physical demands of the job, the individual’s functional capacity, and the environment itself, then recommend adjustments that protect the worker and support long-term retention.
In workers’ compensation cases, ergonomic assessments are frequently used to evaluate whether a workplace contributed to an injury or whether proposed modifications are sufficient to support a safe return to work. Our assessments provide objective, practical findings that inform both medical and legal decision-making.
Career Progression Mapping
Career progression mapping goes beyond finding a first job. It builds a longer-term vocational vision rooted in the individual’s strengths, interests, and realistic opportunities in the labor market. Whether someone is entering the workforce for the first time, returning after a significant absence, or pivoting after an injury or diagnosis changes what they can do, career mapping gives them a sense of direction and a plan they can actually follow. It turns an uncertain future into a navigable path.
Site Assessments
Site assessments serve DVR counselors, job placement specialists, and supported employment teams who want to evaluate a workplace before or after a placement is made. We visit the location, assess physical accessibility, identify potential accommodation needs, review job demands in context, and flag anything that could create barriers for a specific individual. The goal is to catch problems before they become crises and give placement teams the information they need to set someone up for success from day one rather than discovering obstacles after the fact.
Supported Employment Services
Supported employment is designed for individuals with significant disabilities who need more than a job referral to succeed in the workforce. Supported Employment provides individualized, sustained assistance through every stage of the employment process: job development, placement, and long-term follow-along support. We build real relationships with both the individual and the employer, work through the inevitable challenges that come with any new job, and provide the consistent presence that turns a placement into a career. Everyone deserves the dignity of meaningful work, and we stay the course until that outcome is real.
Customized Employment
Customized employment is a person-centered approach for individuals with complex disabilities who may not be well-served by traditional job placement methods. Rather than fitting a person into an existing job description, we conduct an individualized discovery process to understand their unique strengths, contributions, and conditions for success. We then negotiate directly with employers to create a job that meets both the individual’s needs and the employer’s unmet business needs. The result is employment built around who someone actually is, not who a job posting assumes they should be.
Occupational Therapy
Occupational therapy bridges the gap between medical treatment and vocational readiness. Our occupational therapists focus on the practical, functional skills that work and daily life demand, helping individuals rebuild physical and cognitive capacity in ways that translate directly to employment outcomes. Whether someone is recovering from injury, managing a progressive condition, or learning to work around a lifelong disability, we keep the vocational goal in sight and measure progress in terms of real-world function.
In workers’ compensation cases, occupational therapy services are often part of a broader return-to-work plan. We work within the parameters established by treating physicians and case managers to help injured workers regain the specific capabilities their job requires, documenting progress in a way that supports medical and legal decision-making.
Cognitive Training
Individuals living with acquired brain injuries, neurological conditions, mental health diagnoses, or learning differences, cognitive challenges can be among the most invisible and most significant barriers to employment. Our cognitive training programs use evidence-based strategies to strengthen memory, attention, processing speed, executive function, and the organizational skills that work demands. We meet individuals where they are, set realistic and meaningful goals, and track progress in terms of what changes in their daily lives and vocational potential.
In personal injury and workers’ compensation cases involving traumatic brain injury or other cognitive impairments, cognitive training services support both rehabilitation and documentation. Progress records and functional outcomes can inform legal proceedings and help establish the nature and extent of ongoing limitations.
Pre-Employment Transition Services (PreETS)
PreETS are federally mandated services for students with disabilities between the ages of 14 and 21. These services are designed to build the foundation young people need before they ever enter the workforce: job exploration and career awareness, work-based learning experiences, workplace readiness training, self-advocacy skills, and guidance on post-secondary education options. We deliver these services in schools, communities, and workplaces, meeting students where they are and helping them develop a realistic, hopeful vision of their future. No young person with a disability should enter adulthood without having had the chance to explore what work means for them.
Work Adjustment Training
Work adjustment training is provided individuals who need structured support to develop the behaviors, habits, and attitudes that competitive employment requires. This might include someone who has never worked before, someone returning after a long absence due to disability or incarceration, or someone whose disability has affected their ability to function consistently in a work environment. Training takes place in a supported setting where participants practice punctuality, task completion, communication with supervisors, managing frustration, and other foundational workplace skills, without the full pressure of a competitive job. The goal is to build the readiness that makes a real placement possible.
Personal Adjustment Training
Personal adjustment training addresses the non-vocational barriers that impact employment success. These barriers are often deeply practical: difficulty managing transportation, maintaining personal hygiene and professional appearance, handling money, communicating effectively, or managing stress and conflict. When these challenges go unaddressed, even a well-matched job placement will fail. We work with individuals one-on-one to build the life skills and personal routines that support stable, sustained employment, treating every person with the dignity and respect that process deserves.
Workers' Compensation Cases (Loss of Earning Power)
When a workplace injury prevents someone from returning to their former occupation or reduces what they are capable of earning, a formal evaluation of loss of earning power provides the objective foundation that legal and insurance proceedings require. We assess the injured worker’s vocational history, transferable skills, current functional limitations, and the realistic wages available to them in the current labor market. Our reports quantify the gap between what someone earned before their injury and what they can reasonably expect to earn going forward, providing attorneys, insurers, and adjudicators with the credible, well-documented analysis they need to reach fair outcomes.
Veteran Total Disability Individual Unemployability (TDIU)
Veterans pursuing TDIU benefits through the VA must demonstrate that their service-connected disabilities prevent them from securing and maintaining substantially gainful employment. Our vocational evaluators prepare thorough, professionally documented reports that examine the veteran’s work history, functional limitations, and the realistic demands of the labor market to support that determination. We understand the weight of what’s at stake and approach every case with the care, precision, and respect that veterans have earned. Our reports are written to meet VA standards and to stand up to review at every level of the claims process.
Expert Testimony
When vocational questions enter a courtroom or administrative hearing, the quality of the expert matters as much as the quality of the opinion. Our vocational experts have experience testifying in workers’ compensation hearings, personal injury trials, Social Security disability proceedings, and family law cases. We communicate complex vocational findings in plain, accessible language that judges and juries can understand, and we hold up confidently under cross-examination because our methodology is sound and our opinions are well-documented from the start. Retaining us early in a case also means we can review records, evaluate opposing expert opinions, and advise counsel on the strongest vocational strategy.
Functional Capacity Evaluations (FCEs)
Functional capacity evaluations are a standardized, objective measure of what an individual can physically perform in a work setting. An FCE provides essential data for matching a participant to appropriate vocational goals and identifying the accommodations or conditioning they may need before placement. The results remove guesswork from the planning process and help ensure that goals are grounded in what someone can actually do safely and consistently.
In workers’ compensation and personal injury cases, FCEs are frequently used to resolve disputes about physical capacity, establish restrictions for return-to-work planning, or challenge the opinions of treating physicians or opposing experts. Our evaluators are Matheson Trained, rigorous, impartial, and experienced in producing results that withstand legal scrutiny.
Work Conditioning
Work conditioning is a structured rehabilitation program designed to restore the physical strength, endurance, flexibility, and functional capacity an individual needs to return to their job safely. For Individuals recovering from injury, illness, or surgery, work conditioning bridges the gap between medical discharge and full vocational readiness, ensuring that a return to work doesn’t result in re-injury or early failure. Programs are individualized, goal-driven, and calibrated to the actual physical demands of the person’s occupation.
In workers’ compensation cases, work conditioning is often a key component of the return-to-work plan and a factor in legal determinations about readiness and capacity. We document progress carefully and communicate with case managers, physicians, and legal teams to ensure the program supports both the individual’s recovery and the broader case objectives.
Social Skills Groups
For many, the hardest part of keeping a job is not the work itself but the people. Navigating workplace relationships, communicating with supervisors, handling conflict, reading social cues, and presenting oneself professionally are skills that don’t come automatically for everyone, especially for individuals with autism spectrum disorder, intellectual disabilities, mental health conditions, or traumatic brain injuries. Our social skills groups provide a structured, supportive environment where participants practice these interactions repeatedly, build confidence through repetition and feedback, and develop a toolkit they can carry into any workplace. Groups are kept small to allow for meaningful participation and individualized attention.