If you hire an attorney for your disability claim, it is likely that Social Security will automatically send them 25% of the back benefit (up to a maximum of $6,000) after your case is successfully completed.
However, there are times when an attorney can’t automatically be paid and must prepare a document called a “Fee Petition.” This document asks Social Security to authorize a specific dollar amount to compensate the attorney for their time working on the case. It includes a record of the time spent preparing the case.
This will typically happen when a disabled person stops working with one attorney partway through the process and hires a new one. There are other, less common, situations where a lawyer must fill out a fee petition to be paid.
Under Social Security’s rules, if a judge has decided a case favorably, and more than one law firm has worked on a case, they will then make a decision on how much money to pay out of back benefits to each lawyer. The judge can award up to $10,000 between the two or more attorneys. In our experience, they typically stick closer to awards that total $6,000, but this is not always the case.
If you are considering switching attorneys, it is important to know that under the fee petition process all of your attorneys could be paid for their time working on your case, even if they were not the attorney who went to the hearing with you.