About Susan Michele
Susan Michele Schaefer earned a B.A. in English from Indiana University Bloomington in 1984 and a J.D. from Valparaiso University School of Law in 1988. Those academic years anchored a career that moved quickly from courtroom work to administrative adjudication. The degrees signaled a shift from studying texts to interpreting rules and procedures for people who needed help with federal benefit systems.
She began her legal career in private practice as a trial lawyer at Emerick and Diggins, P.C., starting in 1988. Within a few years she transitioned to public service at the Social Security Administration. By 1991 she was serving as a Hearing Office Director and Supervisory Lawyer, a role that placed her inside the agency’s day-to-day decisionmaking on disability claims. She later took on broader management duties and in 2006 served as a Deputy Director and Branch Chief at the SSA, overseeing multiple aspects of hearings administration.
In 2019 she founded Cardea Law Group, LLC and serves as its owner. Her move back into private practice followed decades of hands-on experience with federal benefit systems. She is accredited by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to represent veterans before the VA. She also holds admissions in Alabama and Indiana and maintains memberships with the American Bar Association, the Alabama State Bar, and NOSSCR.
Colleagues and clients see a lawyer who knows how administrative offices operate from the inside. Her background includes administrative hearings, written appeals, and supervisory work that covered caseflow and adjudicative consistency. She has represented claimants in hearings before administrative law judges and has handled appeals at various stages of the administrative process. The work draws on procedural knowledge and an ability to explain complex determinations to people unfamiliar with bureaucratic rules.
Schaefer combines the advocacy of her early trial practice with years of federal agency experience. She has moved between roles that demanded both individual case attention and oversight of broader office operations. That combination informs how she prepares cases, manages deadlines, and engages opposing advocates and agency staff.
She currently practices from Cardea Law Group, LLC where her work centers on veterans’ benefits and Social Security disability claims and appeals.
