Are Disability Lawyers Free in Upstate New York?

Posted on November 28, 2018

Finances were tough even when you had regular paychecks. Now that serious health issues keep you from working, money is beyond tight.

Social Security Disability benefits, including monthly checks, offer financial relief and a bit of peace.

But they deny most people who try to get benefits.

A Social Security Disability lawyer can help you through this process. But do disability lawyers charge? How can you afford one?

This is the good news: You can get an attorney without paying anything up front.

Don’t worry about hourly rates and retainers. Thanks to Social Security rules, you won’t pay out of pocket for your attorney’s services. You only pay a fee when you win benefits.

The disability attorneys at Lachman & Gorton have helped thousands of hard-working people in Binghamton, Elmira, Endicott, Oneonta, Rochester and across Upstate New York—without putting a strain on their finances.

The Rules That Help You Afford a Disability Attorney

You can’t imagine adding another expense to your budget.

Are disability lawyers free through the whole process of getting benefits? Not completely. They get paid when they succeed at winning benefits for you.

But the Social Security Administration has special regulations to make it as painless as possible to afford the representation you need to get the best chance at life-changing benefits.

Disability attorneys work on what’s called a “contingency fee” basis, which is the system under which they only get paid when you get paid. Here’s how it works:

No up-front fees: Never work with a Social Security Disability lawyer who says you need to pay a retainer fee. The rules say you don’t pay up-front fees for a disability lawyer.
No fees until you win benefits: Attorneys only get paid when you win your case. If you don’t win benefits, your lawyer doesn’t receive any fee.
No deductions from your monthly disability checks: Your attorney will collect a fee when you win, but never from your pocket or out of your newly won disability checks each month.
The attorney fee comes from back benefits: Social Security requires the attorney’s fee to come out of your lump sum of back benefits. You get back benefits because when you win, you’ve probably been waiting months, or longer. Social Security recognizes that you qualified for benefits during much of that time and pays you for the overdue period all at once. Your attorney fee comes out of that payment.
Limits on attorney charges. Social Security also limits how much of your back benefits an attorney can collect. The government sets a maximum dollar amount for lawyers, which can change year to year. And it puts a 25 percent overall cap on lawyer fees. So your lawyer can collect up to 25 percent of your retroactive benefits, or the dollar limit, whichever one is smaller.

And remember, they can’t charge a penny until you win.

On top of that, the disability lawyers at the Lachman & Gorton Law Office won’t charge anything at all for an initial evaluation of your situation.

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Why Work with a Disability Lawyer in New York in the First Place?

So some of your back pay in the end will go to your lawyer. But do you even have to pay that? Do you have to work with a Social Security Disability lawyer at all?

You’re not required to have a lawyer. You can apply for benefits on your own.

That can be a rough road.

Having a disability lawyer lightens your workload and helps you win benefits in the first place. Your disability lawyer can also help you get Social Security to recognize an earlier start date for your qualifying impairment, which means more back benefits in the end.

These are some of the benefits of working with a New York disability attorney:

You get guidance with Social Security’s tangle of forms to fill out, reducing the stress on you.
Your lawyer does the legwork of collecting medical records and other evidence you need for your claim.
With a lawyer, you can avoid the small mistakes people often make that cause benefits denials.
If you’re denied benefits—as most people are—the process becomes much more legalistic, including hearings with judges. For that, you really want a lawyer.
The government’s own numbers show that people with representatives like lawyers at their hearings are much more likely to win benefits.

So are disability lawyers free? It’s free to get one to start on your case and do the work it takes to win benefits. And you’ll never pay an attorney fee if you don’t win benefits.

Do disability lawyers charge? Only in the end, when you win, and only from a pot of money that you’re awarded when you win.

You can see how working with disability attorney is low risk for you financially.

There’s also a non-financial reason to get a Social Security Disability lawyer: The process is hard, cold and unfeeling at a time when you feel vulnerable and need someone to listen to you and support you. A good lawyer makes sure you’re treated with care, dignity and respect.

Lachman & Gorton is here to help you every step of the way, working to boost your chances of winning benefits and get you back to financial stability.

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