I am looking for concrete insight into the practice of "fee petitioning" by your disability attorney/representative. If you are unfamiliar with the term you should pay very close attention to what I have to say here, because few of you are likely to know the extremes your attorney will go to, to get paid far far above the current $6,000 cap.

In my case, I just won my federally remanded ALJ hearing(my third in ten years)on a bench decision, it took just twenty-five minutes at the hearing, an SSA medical expert testified and gave me a less then sedentary RFC on the spot, this was likely due to the fact that for the first time in the ten years I had been pursuing my benefits, my primary treating doctors medical records were in attendance. I personally got these records after the lies of two previous attorneys came to light, both had insisted that they had done their jobs by getting all of my records, both were lying to me! Thats another story, regardless, after the third attorney also failed to get them, I personally intervened and got them for myself.

These records were absolutely crucial, so crucial that I won the remand hearing in under thirty minutes with them! The third attorney even told me this face to face, he said that these records were so thorough, and over such a long period of time that there was no way an SSA medical expert, or ALJ could reject them. The result being of course the bench decision.

Here's where things get very slimy, the third attorney, who never got the records(I did)came out of of the little hearing room all excited, because we were now talking about a very substantial amount of back benefits, going back almost an entire decade. He let it slip to me that he was going to do a "fee petition" in which he claims to have earned far in excess of the capped $6,000 fee, a claim wholly dishonest, and unsupported by his contribution to the outcome. For example, the week before the hearing he didn't know what my disability even was! The day of the hearing, I noticed he had a very thick file with him which I immediately identified as the records I had mailed to his office six months previously, its all he had with him, nothing else.

Forget that the attorney did nothing to even remotely earn over forty thousand dollars, thats beyond the scope of the post, what he did do knowing full well the desperate state of my affairs, was initiate a "fee petition" which you the reader will find all but impossible to find any references of in any of the literature, or on the various internet ssdi grindhouse law firms explanations of how they get paid, the few references to "fee petitions" all seem to come from SSA itself.. The "fee petition itself causes substantial delay in the processing of your back benefits, maybe as much as a year!!! Do understand, men & women who have won their claims, even on bench decisions as I did, having to wait as much as another year or more to get paid while the SSA is forced to investigate the claims of your attorney! Everything is forced to come to a grinding halt because of the greed of the attorney, who by these actions appear to be all but depraved & indifferent to their clients dire circumstances....

I am looking for comments from those of you who know whats involved here, those who actually were forced to endure this "fee petition" process so that their attorney could bleed them for substantially more money with the full approval of the SSA? I encourage everyone of you to thoroughly question your attorney regarding their deeply deceptive fee structures....Thanks for any substantive responses....

Thanks for sharing your story. I actually am not surprised by it. I believe the $6000 cap is for basic services of an attorney up to a successful first ALJ hearing with a one and only attorney. It has been a while since I have read and studied the SSDI rules and regulations. If I remember correctly, the $6000 cap does NOT necessarily include any thing beyond the initial ALJ hearing.

I am very sorry to hear what you are going through and wish you the best including a denial by SSA to award the attorney the fees you quote and that you will not be delayed the benefits for which you are entitled.

Since the attorney is paid out of your benefits by SSA, until that is a settled and agreed upon amount, SSA will not be able to release your back pay to you.

I hope that you will at least immediately receive your monthly benefit while this matter regarding back-pay benefit balance is determined.

Dear SkyKing,

Did this (the third) attorney represent you in Federal Court where you were remanded back to your final ALJ hearing?

The $6000 cap will carry a claimant from initial application, through a first ALJ hearing. After that, the cap is gone if I remember correctly.

Also, am I understanding correctly that you had a fee agreement signed by you and approved by SSA with THIS attorney number 3 that specified the $6000 limit?

From what point did #3 take your case?

Fee agreements beyond the initial ALJ hearing are usually very different than the standard fee agreement.

If this attorney represented you in Federal court, I am sorry to tell you that he could very likely be awarded more than the $6000 cap even if you feel it unjustified. It is not a matter of just who obtained your records. His justification would be his representation before a Federal judge. Obtaining your medical records is something that is often done by SSA at the time of your original application and not a means of justifying an excess fee by an attorney from SSA. So that is NOT the issue at hand. It does not matter if the attorney was not the one that obtained your records or not. It is for his legal services appearing in Federal court that would be justification.

My comments are based solely on the information you present in this post. Many details of which attorney and when are not indicated so my response may not be valid if all the facts of what services attorney # 3 provided are not indicated.

Sorry I can not give you better news.

It goes like this, attorney number two after negligently costing me hearing number two back in 09, punted me off to some firm in Chicago. This firm took my case to federal court and won a remand hearing, in which get this, they were paid via the "EAJA's act" at whatever the prevailing hourly rate is for such attorneys. Then that firm punted me down to one of their junior attorneys whom I attempted to fire after he delayed the first remand hearing and then refused to acknowledge his responsibility for, this was discovered only after I personally contacted ODAR who then informed me that the delay had been initiated by my representative! Mind you, "he refused to acknowledge that the delay that I had never been consulted about, was his doing!"

I was unable to secure another attorney, all refused to take the case because they had never seen the missing medical files, they only saw the SSA disc file which contained nothing but IME's from multiple insurance companies during my work comp lawsuit way back in 2002-2004! After it became apparent that I was stuck with this creep, I began badgering him over the missing files, explaining to him in exacting detail why they were missing, who was responsible, and how valuable they had to be to my case. Of course he assured me that he was different and that he would get all necessary documents required to prove my case, six months later, and just six months out of the remand hearing, I personally contacted ALLINA and getting these records released to me, twelve years of my primary doctors medical files on me. They told me that they had never heard from any attorney on my behalf after tghe work comp case settled in 04!

So, we go to the new hearing, in which brilliant lawyer number three(who is clueless)prepares me for inevitable failure, never at any point imparting anything resembling confidence in my case, largely because he had never taken the time to read over the files I had obtained for him from ALLINA. We go into the hearing, and surprise surprise, the ALJ has done his job, he actually took the time to read over the files that had been missing from my previous two hearings, as had is medical expert who was physically on hand, following twenty-five minutes of banter between the ALJ, the ME, and the VE, he issued a bench decision paying my claim in full!!!

My attorney hadn't said more then the two introductory sentences which kicked off the hearing....in the little office room reserved for attorneys and clients suddenly my guy is "Clarence Darrow," he explains to me how crucial my primary doctors medical records were and how he is now going to be filing a "fee petition" so as to get a lot more money then the $6.000 cap! At no stage was it explained that these parasites could exceed the cap, and I openly challenge you or anyone here to present a single piece of evidence from any of the usual sources of SSDI representation that they can and will easily defeat the cap and further, do so at the expense of the well being of you their client!

In fact attorney number two(who I am meeting with a malpractice lawyer to discuss tomorrow)even told me what a great deal it would be for me with these guys because their fees would all be covered under the EAJA act, which was clearly a lie, if all holds as it appears to be, this firm is going to be paid twice, and in the latter instance it would amount to nothing short of theft!

Thanks for the additional information. If attorney #3 did nothing more than show up at your final ALJ hearing, SSA will not find his petition valid and should deny it.

I believe you had 15 days to contest the fee petition presented by the attorney. I may not be remembering that correctly but I think that is the rule.

I left a message for you on your home page.

Dear SkyKing,

I am very sorry you have had such an awful battle and such a long one. It is very good to hear that you FINALLY, after 10 years, were approved.

If attorney #3 did NOT represent you in Federal court, only at your last ALJ hearing, I do not think he would be entitled to an approval on his fee petition.

Let us hope that it is denied and you get your back-pay benefits quickly and that your attorney will be limited to the $6000 cap.

Based on the information you have supplied, he is NOT justified for going beyond the cap., I feel confident that SSA will agree. He has to substantiate his fee to them.

You might want to look into contesting his petition. Good luck and so glad you finally won at least ONE battle. If you can fight for 10 years, you can fight the fee petition.

Good luck to you and keep us posted.

One other thing which I forgot to add, the ALJ at the third hearing vacated lawyer number threes "fee agreement" or did not approve of it, the stated reasons being, "your appointed representation who are not members of the same law firm or other business, and the representatives from the other law firm did not waive charging and collecting a fee!" Thus the ALJ in his fully favorable decision instructed me and or my representatives that we/they could request a review and or file a "fee petition!"

I believe that the attorney planned on that from the first, in other words the ALJ's action was merely a formality, which in no way predicts future outcome of the SSA investigation of the "fee petition," or the length and depth of the process...

Its important that folks understand what the issue is here, the "fee petition" process as I understand it, stops everything in its tracks as the SSA is forced to investigate the attorneys claims, which in this instance are purely a fabrication, he's not pursuing it because he earned it, he's pursuing it(the fee petition)because he can!

The attorney knowing the dire circumstances I face, willfully, and in m opinion, with virtually depraved indifference, initiated this process unconcerned in the least by the staggering delays its likely foisting upon me! Further, in his actions I am concerned that the AC will pick up the case which is exactly what you don't want to have happen.

My advice to all SSDI claimants is to never hire an attorney, you do not need them, they are for all intents and purposes parasites in this system. The major factor here is knowing your files, I had three attorneys involved in this over ten years and they collectively caused me dramatically greater harm than did the SSA. You can say that in my federal court action I required the aid of an attorney, true enough it was. Nonetheless that attorney had nothing to do with this case after the district court action, and that attorney was paid in full via EAJA! After that the file went back into the SSDI systems for a remanded hearing all that was needed in hindsight was my missing medical files which were virtually un-impeachable, and believe me when I say this, after ten years of this BS, I can tell you as a qualified expert on the topic of SSDI representation, you are most likely hurting yourself by retaining the services of one of these attorney's, they do absolutely nothing, none of them prepare themselves until the week of your hearing, many of them not until the day of the hearing, its been my experience in fact, that they can very greatly negatively affect the outcome via their incompetence & negligence, which I have concluded is quite common.

Keep this in mind, only 1% of all ALJ denials proceed from the worthless AC process into federal district court as did mine. What percentage do you wager were screwed by some incompetent or negligent attorney's actions resulting in them giving up altogether? Just 1% proceed to the federal court, my case was so strong with my missing medical files that they resulted in a bench decision rendered in just twenty five minutes, and I had never won at any step along the ladder until the federal court stepped in!

But who filed the appeal with the federal court? Did you know how to do that? Was there a brief or an argument presented?

It's easy to look back and see what didn't work; harder to see the future. Why did you keep hiring attorneys if you were so disgusted with them? How much time did the first two spend working on your case for free (since they won't get a fee)? Why is that fair to them?

If you don't like the terms of a contract, don't sign it. As long as the terms are legal, you must abide by it.

Skyking-I know exactly what you are referring to. I had a similar problem on my appeal.

The way the court decides attorneys' fees is neither fair nor informed. It is skewed in favor of the attorney(s), and they know it. The government really needs to reform how the fee is handled, but I truly doubt it ever will be, as no one is interested in making sure the disabled aren't being taken advantage of by their legal representatives.

I hope you are able to block your attorney's efforts to make a mint off of your case. I wasn't able to.

And it has nothing to do with 'signing a contract'. You expect to pay a fair price for a service rendered, and not an exorbitant fee. But the government takes our money and does what they will with it, despite the facts. That is neither fair nor just, and we are right to be upset by it.