It is so sad what SSD puts us through! I am sorry to hear that you are in a similar situation as mine was, prior to getting a fully favorable outcome. I fought for 4 years, exhausted the appeal process, and ended up in a hearing. The judge said he would make a decision after reviewing my case, and I finally heard from him a month later, I was finally approved. It was 5 mo. before I got the first mo. payment, and 2 mo. more before I got the backpay. I live in IN where there was a terrible backlog of cases at that time.

My list of diagnosis was a foot long, but at first they said that any one of them by themselves wouldn't be disabling. Not true, but I had to fight the system to get that through to them. I have several chronic conditions that I'll always have, and my spine is shot! Finally, the judge saw exactly what I was living with when I was face to face with him. Since then, things have gotten worse, but I won't bore you with all that.

I understand exactly what you mean when you said that it's almost impossible to find a job that would be flexible on their attendance policy. That doesn't exist! I jokingly said that if they had a cot in back, and gave me the right to come in late, Maybe I could work part time...lol Oh yeah, I would have to find a ride to work, because I don't drive, due to epilepsy...but that isn't disabling either....yeah right.

It's horrible that your attorney dropped your case like that! Sheesh! My impression of his decision is that he felt your case wasn't strong enough to win in the court hearing. Therefore, rather than putting anymore of his time into it, he gave up on you. This is only my impression. Who knows why he did that, but I agree with the others here, that was so wrong!!

With regard to your question about finding another lawyer, I would go ahead and call that number you were given. I'm sure that if you go to the yellow pages there would be lawyers advertisements for what they specialize in, and more than likely there would be lawyers listed that do take SSD cases. Usually those lawyers will take your case on contengency, meaning they won't charge you if you don't win. If you do win, they will only take 25% of your backpay if it totals less than $5,300, and by law cannot take more than $5,300 total for handling your case. I ended up having to go to the nearest big city to find an attorney that handled only SSD cases. I got his name from my caseworker through the medicaid/food stamp office.

I'm not sure if this will help, but wanted to share my experience with you, as it sounded somewhat like what I went through. I truly hope you can find the right attorney, and end up with a fully favorable decision!

Good Luck!
~Kimmy