How to Choose the Right Disability Lawyers for Your Needs: A Guide
While you hope you ever need disability lawyers, life is rarely perfect and you’ll run into some complications.
Making a disability claim can be overwhelming unless you understand the law. As an everyday citizen, you haven’t likely dealt with disability and what it entails. Choosing the best person to help you get the compensation you need is a must or you might lose out on money for years to come.
Continue reading this article to learn how to find the best disability lawyers and the reasons you need a lawyer to help with disability.
Table of Contents
- The 411 on Finding the Best Disability Lawyers
- Questions to Ask Your Potential Disability Lawyers
- Where are you licensed to practice law?
- What mistakes am I making as I’m filing my claim?
- Should I start my claim over?
- What is the firm’s approval rate?
- How large of a percentage of approvals are the hearing level?
- What percentage of wins get full benefits & what percentage get partial benefits?
- Professionalism & Customer Service
- Outcome Promises
- Attorney Access
- Can I Afford the Best Disability Attorney?
- The Legal Information You Need at Your Fingertips
The 411 on Finding the Best Disability Lawyers
Whether you’re looking for long term disability insurance lawyers or someone to help you get paid for a short-term disability, most disability attorneys can help you with long or short-term disabilities.
Don’t be too quick to vet attorneys. Take your time to find the right one for you. Here are some things you should ask your attorney before you consider hiring them.
Do you know how to apply for disability? Keep watching to know about this.
Questions to Ask Your Potential Disability Lawyers
Don’t forget to ask these important questions. These questions will help you vet your potential best disability lawyers choices.
Where are you licensed to practice law?
Asking the most basic questions is key. Ask them if they are licensed to practice law in your jurisdiction. If you’ve found an attorney that you like but they aren’t able to take care of your claim because of where you’re located — you’re wasting your time.
To be practice law in your area, the attorney has to be in good standing with your state’s bar association.
What mistakes am I making as I’m filing my claim?
I’ve you’ve already started filing your claim but you can’t get approved, asking them what mistakes you’re making on your claim can help you cut through to the heart of the issue.
Should I start my claim over?
When you speak to a good disability lawyer, they will be able to tell you if you need to start over all the way or they can help you continue your claim. Allowing the attorney to take the entire case over can be the least overwhelming for you.
What is the firm’s approval rate?
Asking about the firm’s approval rating will allow you to get an overall picture of how well they’re doing. If the firm has a low approval rating — pass.
How large of a percentage of approvals are the hearing level?
Going to court can be a major hassle. Finding out how many claims have to go to court when working with this firm will give you an idea of how likely your case will have to go to court.
What percentage of wins get full benefits & what percentage get partial benefits?
A reputable firm will be able to share these stats. If they can’t tell you these things or if they seem uncomfortable sharing this information — pass.
Professionalism & Customer Service
When you’re working with an attorney, you’re likely to have many questions. The attorney should never treat you like you’re an annoyance.
Their staff should be helpful and answer your calls quickly. You don’t want to have to wait for days for a reply.
Outcome Promises
Look out for outcome promises. Attorneys cannot and should not promise outcomes.
A good attorney will review your case and only tell you what they believe they could do for you vs. telling you they can get the approval without any knowledge of your case.
The attorney you work with should be honest that they can’t make the approval committee come to a conclusion any sooner than you can on your own if you’re filing your claim the right way. The process takes as long as it takes and they can’t speed it up.
On the other hand, one of the things that can hold up your approval is not filing your claim properly so having an attorney to help you can make the process faster if they make sure you get the best disability lawyers .
Attorney Access
Before you start working with an attorney, you need to know how much access you’ll have to the attorney. Find out if you’re going to be working with the attorney directly or if they’ll be handing your case off to paralegals and other people in their office.
Can I Afford the Best Disability Attorney?
If you’re worried about getting your hands on money so you can pay an attorney retainer — that isn’t how disability attorneys do business.
As you’re looking through your attorney choices, you’ll likely see that all disability attorneys charge almost the same rate across the board. The attorney’s fee has to be approved by the Social Security judge and is taken out of your back pay for social security disability benefits.
If you don’t get an award of benefits then you don’t owe anything to the attorney you’re working with. Attorney fees are capped at 25% or a maximum of $6,000.
After the initial 25% payment of back pay of benefits with a maximum of $6,000, your benefits will come to you in full in the future. You don’t have to worry about giving a continuous payment to the attorney for helping you with your case since this is illegal and not permitted by the Social Security Administration.
The Legal Information You Need at Your Fingertips
Going through the process of getting disability benefits don’t have to drive you up a wall when you work with highly qualified disability lawyers.
Now that you know how to choose the best attorney for your case, why not continue your education? We have many articles for your best disability lawyers related questions.
Navigate to your favorite disability lawyers section of our site, drop a bookmark and come back soon for more great reads.