The Social Security Administration said it plans to raise the fee cap that attorneys can charge claimants when they apply for benefits that are due, which could lead to applicants having to pay more for legal support.
Analysts say the cap lift could increase the likelihood of finding high-quality legal support that could give claimants a better chance of securing a positive decision when seeking backpay and owed monies.
Last week, the SSA announced that it plans to increase the attorney fee cap from its current $7,200 to $9,200 for applicants who are applying or appealing for past due benefits. The last time this fee was raised was in November 2022. Prior to that it had remain unchanged for more than a decade. The change is set to take effect in the fall, SSA said in a statement.
"Our programs can be complex and quality representation – from initial claims to appeals – helps people navigate the process," Martin O'Malley, Commissioner of the Social Security Administration, said in a statement.
Charles T. Hall, a social security disability law specialist and a partner at Hall & Rouse, said that depending on the longevity of the case, legal fees may now cost more but there could be cases where the cost remains unchanged.
"It does not cost more for an individual to file a claim for social security disability, there's still no cost for that in dollar terms," he told Newsweek. "Maybe a cost in terms of the time you have to put up with to devote to file a claim. The attorney fee in a few cases will work out to be more money. In most cases it will work out to be exactly the same."
The attorney fee can end up a quarter of the potential due amount that a claimant may receive from the agency, Hall said.
He gave an example of an applicant filing a claim and hiring an attorney in 2021.
"The case goes on and on and on, and the claim is finally approved in 2024. It potentially involves three years of back benefits to that point, and by this point it's mounted up to a fair amount of money and so the attorney will receive more, the claimant will be receiving more. Whatever the attorney gets the claimant will be receiving at least three times as much," Hall said.
Other experts said the lifting of the cap was about time.
"Even though the fee increase is substantial and may seem more expensive, the increase appears to be long overdue after so many years with practically none," Burt Williamson, a retirement specialist at PlanPrep, told Newsweek. "The likelihood is that many disabled individuals may have struggled to find the high-quality representation they need to represent them before the SSA due to lower fee levels over the last decade or so. That may be why the SSA is authorizing the ability of representatives to request higher fees."
An SSA spokesperson told Newsweek that the fees a claimant will pay will come from the past due benefits they may receive and will be based on what a representative and their client agree in their "fee agreement process."
"When a claimant or beneficiary decides to retain representation, the representative is required to obtain approval of any fee from SSA," the spokesperson said. "The fee agreement cap is the maximum dollar amount an appointed representative can receive under the 'fee agreement process' for successfully representing a person in a case for disability benefits. The cap does not apply to the 'fee petition process.'"
The SSA said that it was facing a backlog of cases and that applicants are forced to wait an average of 8 months to receive an initial decision and sometimes it may take another 7 months for an appeal to be processed. The agency said that it aims to cut those wait times to 4 months.
"Representatives can help SSA develop medical evidence in disability claims more fully, which allows SSA to issue decisions more efficiently," the agency said in its statement.
Hall said that over the years the cap had not kept up with inflation and made it harder for claimants to secure high level legal representation when lodging cases with the SSA.
"It's harder to find an attorney now because the fees have been effectively lowered over the many years and it squeezes us and makes it harder for us to represent claimants," Hall said. "Claimants can't find an attorney, and when they do hire an attorney, the service is not as customized or as personal as the attorney may like."
The shift in the level of the cap may change that dynamic for claimants.
"It will become slightly less difficult for them to hire an attorney," Hall said.
Uncommon Knowledge
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Omar Mohammed is a Newsweek reporter based in the Greater Boston area. His focus is reporting on the Economy and ... Read more
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