That $50 appeal filing fee I threw away on a lazy lawyer

Hired a lawyer who said he'd handle my disability appeal for a flat fee upfront. Paid him 50 bucks just to file the paperwork. Then he sent me a form with the wrong date of onset by 3 years. I caught it because I checked everything he did. When I asked him to fix it he said it was fine and rushed me off the phone. Spent another two months correcting the mess myself. Turns out he had a record of complaints with the bar association I should have looked up. Wish I had just used the free legal aid clinic downtown. Has anyone else gotten burned by a lawyer who just took the filing fee and did nothing?

3 comments

3 Comments

lunah121d ago

Damn, that's rough. Sounds like you got the exact same runaround my cousin got with his disability lawyer last year. Paid the guy 60 bucks upfront and he sent in the paperwork with the wrong diagnosis code, then tried to blame the SSA for the delay. @leo_black76 is spot on about cheap lawyers being worse than none. At least with free legal aid, you know they're not just pocketing your filing fee and running. Good thing you caught that date error before it was too late.

nguyen.angela1d ago

Got a buddy who paid a disability lawyer 75 bucks to file his initial paperwork. Lawyer sent it in with the wrong social security number, then told my friend it was no big deal. Took him almost a year to get that fixed through the SSA office, and by then he'd missed his hearing window and had to start over from scratch.

leo_black761d ago

Knew a guy who hired a lawyer just like that for a workers comp thing and same deal. Flat fee upfront, then the guy ghosted him for six months. When he finally got the paperwork back, the dates were all wrong and the lawyer claimed he "mailed it" but never did. The real kicker is these lawyers bank on you not checking their work, because most people trust them. But you caught it, which is good, because that wrong date of onset could have killed your whole case. Honestly, having a cheap lawyer is worse than no lawyer sometimes, at least with legal aid you know they're not trying to rip you off.