The Law Offices of Steven R. Dolson, PLLC

Owner response

Thank you for the kind review and placing your trust in us. I am very glad we were able to help!

Owner response

In my over 20 years of experience handling Social Security claims I can tell you that I have seen far too many cases where people thought that they could file themselves just to get a rejection because they made mistakes in the application process. Worse still, those mistakes on the front end of a claim can tarnish the case throughout the entire process and ultimately result in a claim being rejected throughout the appeals process. As an attorney I can not give details about a particular case. We value an individual's privacy and do not communicate with third parties, even if those third parties are spouses or parents seeking information about a claim. We also do not communicate through e-mail as not all services are secure. Even though many people would prefer that we do these things, we do not for their own protection. As far as fees are concerned, our fee arrangement is dictated to us by the Social Security Administration. For work performed in front of the agency attorney fees must be contingent upon a successful outcome and limited to 25% of back-due benefits. This is significantly lower than most personal injury lawyers who charge between 33% and 40% for their work. Further, many attorneys do not accept claims at the application stage because the back-due benefits are typically very low and there is significant work involved. We accept claims at this level in order to avoid the types of problems I've mentioned above. It may seem like when we are able to win a claim at the application stage that we haven't done much work, but that is because much of our work is done behind the scenes and is tailored to laying the groundwork for an appeal if necessary.