I'm really confused by your logic here. Why would an attorney be biased against the national 800#? How in the world would it serve him to direct pro se applicants to their local office over the national 800#?

A supervisor at my local office explained to me that the local office has greater access to applicant/beneficiary records then they do at the national 800#. The local agents also receive more in depth training. They're calls are not clocked. You can actually reach them again if they make an error, making them much more accountable. All these things, and I'm sure I'm leaving others out as well, make service at the local office much more reliable.

And when you walk something in, you can get it date stamped. A papertrail when dealing with a government agency is always a good thing.

If being cautious saves even a small percentage of applicants/beneficiaries from a delay or loss of benefits, is that not worthwhile? Everything sailed along smoothly for you. GREAT. But if your bad advice causes someone a two month long delay in getting their backpay, and they're evicted in the meantime...