to Aubrey Re: Re: Losing job? and update

January 23, 2010

,

Have you applied for SSDI yet? Don't hire an attorney quite yet. I made the

mistake of hiring one too early. I filled out all my paperwork myself, got my

doctors to write letters for me, got my medical releases signed. And the

attorney didn't do anything other than give me a retainer agreement to sign

(which gave him 1/3 of my retroactive money).

Ask yourself what this lawyer is actually going to do for you right now? If the

answer is probably nothing until you get denied and assigned a hearing. And you

might NOT get denied (although the majority of people who are not on dialysis or

have terminal cancer DO get denied). And the SSDI process is backed up and

slow; I'm not sure how long the process takes these days, but I've heard 2-3

years. And this attorney is going to take a big chunk of your money.

I wrote letters to politicians after I was denied. Again, the attorney did

nothing. One of the politicians responded (a local Congressman). He wrote a

note to the Judge in my case. Within 2 weeks, my hearing was cancelled and I

recieved a notice saying I'd been granted SSDI!

And I still had to give this lawyer some of MY money despite the fact that he

did nothing.

In my experience, until the hearing, attorneys don't do much. I'd ask to cancel

the agreement with the attorney and let him know you'll come back if you get to

the hearing stage.

Has anyone else on the list found attorneys to be useful before this stage? Or

did I just have a crappy one?

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