The cap on the user fee charged to attorneys and others who receive direct payment of fees coming out of the back benefits of the claimants they represent will be $95 in 2019. This is because of a cost of living adjustment. There is no cost of living adjustment on the maximum fee that may be paid. This means that because the cost of living has gone up my attorney fees are going down. Does this make sense to you?
Fees are only going down if you use a fee agreement. Fee agreements are an expedient. You want a full fee based on your actual services? Then submit a fee request and petition for your fee. There is no limit for petitioning for your fee. There will only be a turn around for that and you may have to call every week until it is sent, but you will not get a lower fee.
ReplyDeleteI wish SSA could get out of the Attorney fee business and let the retroactive check be made out to both parties so you would be guaranteed payment.
ReplyDeleteIncreased fees notwithstanding, it sounds much better than trying to get as much money up front knowing that's probably all you're going to get regardless of how many hours you work the case as a criminal defense lawyer. I would love to have had my fees guaranteed even if I had to pay a user fee and deal with the red tape.
ReplyDeleteBut 8:35 are you saying your clients are truthful and upstanding? Would they stiff you on payment? But we should take the self reports of pain, lack of focus and other allegations as Gospel truth? Interesting.
ReplyDelete@7:50AM. Even if an attorney would use the fee petition process their actual net fee received for the same services from 2018 as compared to 2019 would be less due to the increase in the user fee.
ReplyDeleteI never understood why SSA is so strange when it comes to attorney fees.
ReplyDeleteThey won't let a firm represent a claimant, which creates extra paperwork to substitute attorneys from the same firm.
They regulate the fee, but won't create a standard fee agreement.
They cap the fee for no apparent reason other than to punish attorneys (that must have done a good job to get an accrued amount over 24k).
They make set up arcane rules and procedures to get properly paid on a claim.
The set a maximum fee, with out the reasonable correlation of a minimum fee. If you cap the max fee, then you should guarantee a minimum fee on successful awards.
This whole circus could be resolved with the following changes: 1) allow law firms to represent claimants; 2) create a standard fee agreement; 3) set the fee at 25% with no cap; 4) set a minimum fee equal to one month of SSDI benefits for a successful award.
Oh, and stop charging $95 dollars to mail out a two checks instead of one.
Makes no sense at all. In SSA's world, all costs are going up with the exception of attorney fees because attorneys are still living in 2009.
ReplyDelete@9:15... I am an SSA employee, not an attorney. SSA needs to stop paying the attorney, but give them the same authority they have in other fields to receive payment. Make the retro check out to both parties or allow lines be place on claimant if they fail to pay.
ReplyDeleteOr SSA could speed up the process by hiring more staff so cases don't languish in limbo so long. Reduces the amount of past due benefits because SSA is so efficient. Attorneys decide it is not worth the effort for the money paid per case and get out of the business! It is SSA's inefficiency that makes representing disability claimants a viable business for attorneys. Eliminate those long periods of inactivity on a claim will reduce past due benefits.
ReplyDelete@10:05 the only "logic" I can conclude is behind the refusal to recognize firms is the non-attorney reps being a different situation but even that does not make huge amount of sense. It is a hassle for everyone. I have appeared in other matters covering for other lawyers and it is easier to show up for a discovery hearing in a murder trial on behalf of another attorney and not even be in the same firm than it is to appear at a Social Security hearing when at the same firm.
ReplyDelete@11:40 there is some truth to that. A friend recently scaled back his advertising because the average fee was lower because the local office is hearing cases faster. He didn't think he was getting a good return from his advertising as a result.
Seems like every initiative SSA has taken in last 2-3 years has been designed to make the representative job more difficult. I suspect there is a cabal of SSA star chamber "policy" wonks who have it in for claimants who use representatives. This cabal is able to exist because there is no real oversight or commissioner. And because a significant number of "policy" wonks in Woodlawn have never had any real world work experience. It doesn't help when the perception in republican congresses is that Reps only prey upon claimants.
ReplyDeleteI like the fact that reps think the only thing SSA does is disability and pay representatives.
ReplyDeleteSpoiler Alert!!!! The Agency does not exist to cater to the whims of a few thousand representatives. If you all vanished tomorrow the sun would come up, it does every Friday when none of you can be found!!!
Very fair system. I filed a fee petition in November, 2017. The fee was approved in June 2018. It is December, 2019 I I still have not seen a dime. But I get to pay how much for this wonderful service? I worked very, very hard, in this particular case to earn this fee. I think we should ask SSA employees who handle fees to wait for their paycheck for a year or so. And, while we are at it, ask OGC attorneys who oppose reasonable EAJA fees to take a pay cut, too. After all, they lost.
ReplyDeleteSSA should never have gotten into the attorneys business. The amount of paper mailed in and faxed into field offices, hearing offices, and processing centers is absolutely wasteful and cumbersome. SSA seems to work for attorneys and non-attorney representatives. There are no longer enough employees to do the work that is needed to provide 'world class service'. Very sad. Attorneys and non-attorney representatives should take their clients to court if they aren't paid....SSA should not have to be the middleman, making sure attorneys and non-attorney representatives are paid their fees.
ReplyDeleteAwesome comment @ 2:31. SSA acts as though all us lawyers have stacks of cash put away, that we can wait years to get paid on our work with no problem. Everybody else in the SSA system (ALJ's, staff, OGC lawyers) all know when their money will arrive, and I'm sure protest if their check is even one day late. We on the other hand may expect to receive a check in a month, only to find that 6 months to a year has already passed and there is still no promise that the check will arrive anytime soon, or that the case we had a hearing on 4 months ago is even being written up yet. Our bills don't stop just because SSA has gotten their budget cut, and now have to process cases slower. Then to make matters worse, our fee cap hasn't been raised in many years, but of course our user fee goes up, because the cost of living apparently goes up, but only for everybody else, not for us. Apparently SSA thinks that we are still paying year 1950 prices for everything.
ReplyDeleteIn some ways SSA is its own worst enemy. Years ago when I began practicing, I accepted clients who were filing their initial claims. My assistant and I took a complete detailed work and medical history, obtained copies of all relevant evidence and did the application for the claimant to sign. [The Disability Report forms were longer then and asked for more information than at present.] We probably invested at least 3-4 hours of work in each case. In doing this work, I believed that I was actually helping DDS to process cases, and there was seldom need for supplemental information, which we obtained quickly.
ReplyDeleteThe fee agreement process was not yet in effect, so I had to submit a fee petition. In every single case, the fee granted was $100! In this area, the going attorney fee for representing a client in the typical speeding case was $150, which might consume 1/2 to an hour of total attorney's time. Needless to say, I then accepted only cases in which the claimant had been denied at least once, if not twice (recon). I hope the DDS workers enjoyed their extra work.
@6:18 if it is that bad practice in another area, nobody forcing you to practice admin law done by non atty reps.
ReplyDelete@9:29 I would use the term "done" loosely - non-attorney reps generally do a poor job in my experience.
ReplyDelete