The government needs to do more to protect administrative law judges and other staff who handle hundreds of thousands of Social Security disability appeals and immigration cases each year, union representatives said at a news conference Monday.

During the past four years, some 200 threats have been registered against Social Security Administration hearing offices, Randall Frye, president of the Association of Administrative Law Judges, told reporters at the National Press Club. One disability claimant threatened to break the legs of any doctor who failed to submit medical evidence on his behalf, Frye said, while another said "he had feelings of wanting to kill everyone in the office, including the judge." In 2008, a judge had to take disability retirement after a claimant hit her with a chair, Frye said.

Nationally, about 1,200 Social Security judges hear disability appeals at more than 150 hearing offices. Those offices are often housed in commercially leased space, meaning that judges and other staff don't get the level of protection provided to employees in federal courthouses, Frye said. The first evidence of security comes only in the reception area, he said, where a contract guard is also responsible for keeping order in four to six individual court rooms.

Despite the cost of beefing up safeguards, Frye said, "we also believe that no judge should be sitting in a courtroom in circumstances where he or she may be fearful of physical harm."

Frye's call was echoed by Dana Leigh Marks, president of the National Association of Immigration Judges. While statistics on threats against those judges are not available, she said, such incidents are "extremely disturbing."

"We believe there needs to be a coordinated focus on security for the immigration courts," Marks said. "We believe there needs to be additional funding allocated toward that." Some 237 immigration judges work in 58 immigration courts around the country, according to the union. Last year, they heard about 275,000 cases.

A Social Security Administration spokesman had no immediate response to questions about security in the agency's hearing offices. A phone message left at the Justice Department's Executive Office of Immigration Review, which oversees immigration courts, was not immediately returned.