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Ok, I thought that you were trolling the first time you asked this, but now I think I gave you too much credit.

SSDI lawyers don't really do any lawyering at all, but the guys with daytime TV adds make a killing.

SSDI is a numbers game. Most appeals will eventually get benefits if you appeal/sue enough times, and it doesn't matter to the lawyer how long it takes, because SSA will pay back benefits and the lawyer gets a chunk of that money. There are basically a half-dozen common grounds for appeal, so once you write those six briefs you just change the client's name and recycle them without any real work involved. God help your poor client if their case doesn't fit in one of those categories, because there isn't enough money in it for an attorney to argue your case from scratch, so you'll probably be the rare case that gets denied benefits.

18.50 an hour plus lunch. Lunch can be anywhere in the Zaxby's/Panera range. If you go bigger than that, it's not covered. HTH

I bet this guy makes a killing:

Thanks for the answer Renzo.

I've also been wondering, is it a tough field to get into? I would think so just because it's PI (although I'm sure some people don't consider it PI) but there seems to be a hundred guys on TV in my area alone, and I'm sure there's smaller firms in addition to these.

nealric wrote:I bet this guy makes a killing:

he better be making a killing if he is ballsy enough to wear that hat on national television. Youd think the commercial producers would say, "listen man.. lose the crocodile dundee cap."

Very little if you are just a local guy trying to run some cases on your own. Just think about it---you are dealing with the poorest of poor clientele. How much would you expect to scoop up from them? Most local guys do it along with a rainbow of other types of practices. The Binder guys make money but they are doing it on a massive scale.

Some shitlaw personal injury lawyers try to bolster their income by doing this garbage on the side. Fact is there's very little $$$ left in personal injury since insurance companies will not settle soft-tissue auto cases period in NY/NJ. Also most cars in NJ have state min. policies of only 15 K, so best you can get in fees is 5 K for a ton of aggrevation and years of paper churning and gutter court appearances.

Any case worth a shit will go to one of the big ambulance chaser mills w/ TV and radio commercials. Like most areas of law, plaintiff PI is absurdly oversaturated and reeks of desperation.

MrAnon wrote: The Binder guys make money but they are doing it on a massive scale.

This. The only way to make enough money to keep yourself afloat doing SSDI cases is to do serious volume business. And since the Binder et al. of the world pretty much have the daytime TV and subway ad market on lockdown, you'd have a tough time displacing them.

Renzo wrote:

MrAnon wrote: The Binder guys make money but they are doing it on a massive scale.

This. The only way to make enough money to keep yourself afloat doing SSDI cases is to do serious volume business. And since the Binder et al. of the world pretty much have the daytime TV and subway ad market on lockdown, you'd have a tough time displacing them.

FALSE. I personally know a lawyer who works alone and does primarily SSDI and has for about 25 years (outside of NYC) and made between $200k-$300k a year depending. If you do not consider this enough to "keep yourself afloat" then you can maintain the truth of your statement.

nyf wrote:

Renzo wrote:

MrAnon wrote: The Binder guys make money but they are doing it on a massive scale.

This. The only way to make enough money to keep yourself afloat doing SSDI cases is to do serious volume business. And since the Binder et al. of the world pretty much have the daytime TV and subway ad market on lockdown, you'd have a tough time displacing them.

FALSE. I personally know a lawyer who works alone and does primarily SSDI and has for about 25 years (outside of NYC) and made between $200k-$300k a year depending. If you do not consider this enough to "keep yourself afloat" then you can maintain the truth of your statement.

How many cases does he process a month?

Renzo wrote:

nyf wrote:

Renzo wrote:

MrAnon wrote: The Binder guys make money but they are doing it on a massive scale.

This. The only way to make enough money to keep yourself afloat doing SSDI cases is to do serious volume business. And since the Binder et al. of the world pretty much have the daytime TV and subway ad market on lockdown, you'd have a tough time displacing them.

FALSE. I personally know a lawyer who works alone and does primarily SSDI and has for about 25 years (outside of NYC) and made between $200k-$300k a year depending. If you do not consider this enough to "keep yourself afloat" then you can maintain the truth of your statement.

How many cases does he process a month?

I am sure it varies a lot....cases can last quite a long time. His (you assumed the gender correctly, but that was just luck) cut from every win ends up being between about $3k-$20somethingk depending on how much money the claimant got.

In small towns, there are a lot of lawyers who use this as their bread and butter (with worker's compensation, which has declined significantly since there is no more manufacturing...). You can make a pretty nice living on this and it's rather low stress (though sort of depressing).

nyf wrote:

Renzo wrote:

MrAnon wrote: The Binder guys make money but they are doing it on a massive scale.

This. The only way to make enough money to keep yourself afloat doing SSDI cases is to do serious volume business. And since the Binder et al. of the world pretty much have the daytime TV and subway ad market on lockdown, you'd have a tough time displacing them.

FALSE. I personally know a lawyer who works alone and does primarily SSDI and has for about 25 years (outside of NYC) and made between $200k-$300k a year depending. If you do not consider this enough to "keep yourself afloat" then you can maintain the truth of your statement.

This can easily be explained by the fact that SSDI cases usually involve filing the same canned briefs over and over. As you said, this guy has been doing this for 25 years, so he has obviously built himself a reputation as the go to guy in his area for this. That doesn't disprove the statements made in this thread that describe SSDI work as unprofitable when not done in high volume.

MrAnon wrote:Very little if you are just a local guy trying to run some cases on your own. Just think about it---you are dealing with the poorest of poor clientele. How much would you expect to scoop up from them? Most local guys do it along with a rainbow of other types of practices. The Binder guys make money but they are doing it on a massive scale.

IT does not matter how poor the client is. You get a % of the money owed to the client from the SSA.

Aqualibrium wrote:

nyf wrote:

Renzo wrote:

MrAnon wrote: The Binder guys make money but they are doing it on a massive scale.

This. The only way to make enough money to keep yourself afloat doing SSDI cases is to do serious volume business. And since the Binder et al. of the world pretty much have the daytime TV and subway ad market on lockdown, you'd have a tough time displacing them.

FALSE. I personally know a lawyer who works alone and does primarily SSDI and has for about 25 years (outside of NYC) and made between $200k-$300k a year depending. If you do not consider this enough to "keep yourself afloat" then you can maintain the truth of your statement.

This can easily be explained by the fact that SSDI cases involve filing the same canned briefs over and over. As you said, this guy has been doing this for 25 years, so he has obviously built himself a reputation as the go to guy in his area for this. That doesn't disprove the statements made in this thread that describe SSDI work as unprofitable when not done in high volume.

Thank you. So far, it looks like MrAnon is agreeing with me: there's money in it if you do volume as all the cases are the same, and lawyers don't care if it takes 8 years, because in the long haul they usually win and they collect a % of back benefits.

Edit: You did answer my question, BTW. If he's taking in $200k a year personally, and we assume 50% of what he brings in goes back out as overhead to his office, staff, filing fees, etc., then he's grossing $400k/yr. If a case yields $2k to $20k, he's churning out between 2- 17 cases a month.

nyf wrote:

MrAnon wrote:Very little if you are just a local guy trying to run some cases on your own. Just think about it---you are dealing with the poorest of poor clientele. How much would you expect to scoop up from them? Most local guys do it along with a rainbow of other types of practices. The Binder guys make money but they are doing it on a massive scale.

IT does not matter how poor the client is. You get a % of the money owed to the client from the SSA.

You don't get it. The money the client is getting from the government is just enough to live on. Around 24K for a full year. The client is going to use whatever attorney they will find who will take the smallest cut of that. The MAX award for attorneys for any one case is 25% of the BACK PAY award or $6000, whichever is LESS. There are attorneys that work YEARS just to get an award of 6K. And if a client shops around he will find an attorney who will take less than 25%. So imagine 10% or 15%. Sometimes, nothing is awarded.

MrAnon wrote:

nyf wrote:

MrAnon wrote:Very little if you are just a local guy trying to run some cases on your own. Just think about it---you are dealing with the poorest of poor clientele. How much would you expect to scoop up from them? Most local guys do it along with a rainbow of other types of practices. The Binder guys make money but they are doing it on a massive scale.

IT does not matter how poor the client is. You get a % of the money owed to the client from the SSA.

You don't get it. The money the client is getting from the government is just enough to live on. Around 24K for a full year. The client is going to use whatever attorney they will find who will take the smallest cut of that. The MAX award for attorneys for any one case is 25% of the BACK PAY award or $6000, whichever is LESS. There are attorneys that work YEARS just to get an award of 6K. And if a client shops around he will find an attorney who will take less than 25%. So imagine 10% or 15%. Sometimes, nothing is awarded.

Oh, I get it now. It's one of those lucrative careers that doesn't pay very much.

kwais wrote:18.50 an hour plus lunch. Lunch can be anywhere in the Zaxby's/Panera range. If you go bigger than that, it's not covered. HTH

LOL