I Hired An Attorney But He's Not Getting SSA Mail

 Posted on July 16, 2010 in Social Security Disability

You have applied for Social Security disability benefits and decided to hire a Social Security disability attorney to help you with your claim. You feel as though you made the right decision to have an experienced professional aid you in your quest for benefits, but are still a little weary of what the disability lawyer will be doing to help you with your claim. This is only furthered when you discover that you have to call your attorney with correspondence you receive from the Social Security Administration (SSA) because they are not receiving any of the letters you are.

When you first sign an agreement with a disability lawyer, there are a number of different forms that the attorney needs to send to SSA so the government recognizes him or her as your legal representative. The main forms that must be processed by the government is an Appointment of Representative form, Direct Deposit form, and the fee agreement.  If Social Security fails to correctly processed these documents, they will not recognize your attorney as your legal representative and they will not receive any of the mail that SSA sends you.

This is why it is extremely important that you keep your disability attorney informed of any correspondence you have with SSA, especially if you only recently hired the representative.  It can take weeks and under rare circumstances months for an attorney to FINALLY get on record for your case.  SSA receives hundreds of letters every day and is under staffed to handle the volume of incoming applications for Social Security disability benefits.  It is fairly common for a claimant to receive mail from SSA without the legal representative being aware that they have done so.