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magine a global pandemic shutters your work, you apply for unemployment, and for one reason or another, you re told you don t qualify even though you re sure you do. You can appeal that decision, but now because there are hundreds of thousands of other people applying at the same time thousands with similar issues your appeal could take three, four, five months just to get a yes or no. Appeals that aren t redetermined internally by Washington s Employment Security Department are passed on to the Office of Administrative Hearings, where claimants represent themselves in a simple, virtual hearing in front of a lawyer who serves as an administrative law judge.