Do Attorneys Slow Down The Social Security Disability Process?

I've had clients say to me before that they felt that their prior lawyer was slowing down the process to delay a decision from Social Security in order to increase any fee that they would receive if the client were eventually to be found disabled. I've also had clients ask me if our firm ever stalled the Social Security Administration in order to obtain larger retroactive benefits and therefore increase the fee that we received for assisting the client obtain either Social Security Disability benefits or Supplemental Security Income.

Tomasz Stasiuk, a Social Security Disability attorney in Colorado wrote an excellent blog post on this a few months back.

I agree with his opinion wholeheartedly that:

there is lot a lawyer can do for you: obtain evidence, file briefs, perform analysis, prepare you for your hearing. However, one thing a lawyer cannot do for you is make Social Security move faster than it wants to. No one can force SSA to make a decision before it is ready. The reason Social Security cases take so long is that there an enormous backlog of cases waiting to get through the system.

When you hire a representative, you are hiring someone to stand in line with you and help get you ready while you wait to get to the front. However, they cannot make the line move faster. If you change the person you’re waiting with just before you get to the front, it’s not the change that caused you to get to the front of the line. It is that your turn finally came up! The problem is that you don’t see the line in a Social Security case. You don’t know how many people are in front of you. All you know is that you waited a year with the old attorney, and only a couple of months with the new one.

 Related posts:

What Can A Social Security Disability Attorney Do For Me?
How Long Does It Take To Receive A Decision?