This afternoon Kilolo Kijakazi, Acting Commissioner of Social Security, informed the National Organization of Social Security Claimants Representatives (NOSSCR) and the National Association of Disability Representatives (NADR) that the Social Security Administration will raise the cap on the amount that attorneys may charge under the fee agreement process for representing claimants from $6,000 to $7,200.
In this past, such announcements were made via the Federal Register. This has not yet been published in the Federal Register nor is it scheduled for publication tomorrow.
If this were a true cost of living adjustment, it would be going to $8,200, not $7,200.
When the cap was raised the last time, in 2009, it was not effective until four and a half months after the announcement. I hear that this time it won't be effective until November 30, 2022 which is more than six months off! My hope the last time was that Social Security would use the time to train its staff but it was quickly apparent after the effective date that Social Security's staff hadn't been trained since at first there were more cases handled incorrectly than cases handled correctly. Nobody seemed to have been told that attorneys were allowed to have escalator clauses in their fee agreements that allowed them to be governed by the fee cap in place at the time of implementation rather than the fee cap in place at the time the fee agreement was signed even though this has been Social Security's position since the earliest days of the fee agreement process. I know. I was practicing Social Security law then. At least, back in 2009, we were able to get in touch with the payment centers to get mistakes corrected. They're mostly incommunicado these days and unwilling to correct even the most glaring mistakes.
By the way, if you're an attorney who represents Social Security claimants and your fee agreement hasn't had an escalator clause, you're out of luck. Trying to force a new contract on your clients for your benefit is clearly unethical in my view.
