A commenter recently wrote:

BEWARE!  Attorneys will stretch out the claim filing because the longer it takes, the more money they get.

As I wrote in Can You Pick Your Lawyer Out of a Line-Up,  lawyers should work for their money.  So, if you are not getting value from your representative, maybe you should change who you are working with. However, it is something of a myth that lawyers can speed up or slow down Social Security cases. Of course, a lot of this perpetrated by legal advertising. You have probably seen more than one ad touting “Faster Results!”

So, let’s look at this issue.

What are lawyers’ promises of ‘Faster Results’ really about?

In most medium-sized markets, there are often a dozen lawyers, big and small, competing for your business. In a large market, there could be scores of attorneys competing against each other. Nowadays, you can also add large national companies trying to scoop up as many cases as possible like a blue whale trawling for plankton. The competition isn’t for winning your case; it’s for getting hired! While the lawyer/company won’t get paid unless the case is won, they don’t even get a chance to win the case unless you pick them!

However, since Social Security determines the fees lawyers can charge, you don’t see competition on price. Instead, you get the promise of “Whiter Whites!” which in legal circles translates to “Faster Results!” or “99% Success Rate” or “150 Years Combined Experience.” I have written about the last two previously, so let’s consider the faster results pitch.

It is certainly a compelling offer. Who doesn’t want at least a chance of getting their case done faster? However, are you about to sign on with a better firm, or are you just getting flim-flammed?

• If a representative promises faster results, the results are faster than what? Faster than the national average? That might only mean that they work in one of 25 states that is processes cases faster than the other 25 states. That may not be saying much.
• If an representative claims “most of our cases are approved without a hearing!” To my jaded ears that sounds like they selectively pick cases which are likely to be approved anyway and brief them. Explaining why a case should be approved certainly helps the claimant and counts as work. However, sticking with easy cases is like never getting beyond tic-tak-toe, it doesn’t build legal muscles. Do you get a discount because your case is easy? Probably not.

If you still feel compelled to contact a law firm or non-lawyer representative company promising fast results, remember to ask these four questions:

1. You promise faster results. Faster than what?
2. Do you guarantee a decision within a certain number of months?
3. Do you guarantee a decision without a hearing?
4. What if you don’t deliver? Do you cut your fees? By how much?

Do lawyers slow down Social Security cases to make more money?

Now, let’s consider the flip side of this. Can, and more importantly, do lawyers slow down cases.

It is completely true that since lawyers get a percentage of the back benefits, the longer a case takes, the more a lawyer may conceivable make — at least, up to the fee cap set by Social Security. However, are lawyers slowing down cases. No.

Bull****! I switched lawyers after waiting a year and got my hearing in a month! My old lawyer must have been holding my case back!

A number of cases happen just that way: a long wait with lawyer 1, then a relatively rapid hearing with lawyer 2. However, consider that in every jurisdiction, there is an average number of months that cases wait to get a hearing. In Colorado, it is about 14 months after the filing of the appeal. Put another way, about 14 months after filing an appeal, you can expect a hearing to be scheduled. Sometimes people get tired of their first lawyer “getting nothing done” after a year and fire them. Then, they switch to a new lawyer who gets a hearing in 2 months! Wow, that lawyer must be amazing!

Well, not really. It only means it takes 14 months to get a hearing in that jurisdiction. You waiting 12 months with the first lawyer and the last two months with the second. There is a lot of coincidence masquerading as results.

Note: there a lot a lawyer can do for you: obtain evidence, file briefs, perform analysis, prepare you for your hearing. However, one thing a lawyer cannot do for you is make Social Security move faster than it wants to. No one can force SSA to make a decision before it is ready. The reason Social Security cases take so long is that there an enormous backlog of cases waiting to get through the system.

When you hire a representative, you are hiring someone to stand in line with you and help get you ready while you wait to get to the front. However, they cannot make the line move faster. If you change the person you’re waiting with just before you get to the front, it’s not the change that caused you to get to the front of the line. It is that your turn finally came up! The problem is that you don’t see the line in a Social Security case. You don’t know how many people are in front of you. All you know is that you waited a year with the old attorney, and only a couple of months with the new one.

What can you do about this? Ask your representative how long cases take in your jurisdiction. Even if you can’t see the line of people ahead of you, you will have an idea of how long it should take to get to the front of the line.

Well, I know someone who filed at the same time and used a different lawyer and their case already had a hearing. So, why am I still waiting with you?

Yup, that can happen. In addition to an average time to get a hearing scheduled. There is also a range. Again referring to Colorado: while the average time for a hearing is about 14 months, it may be a short as six months to as long as 18 months for the hearing to be scheduled. Also, some cases are expedited due to dire need or because the claimant is a soldier. And some cases get sent out-of-state to be worked up by other hearing offices or by a national hearing center. Then there are differences in the Social Security staff handling cases, and in the number of openings on the judges’ dockets. Any of these can speed up or slow down how long it takes to get a hearing. The result is some cases move faster than others. Although, lawyers certainly do not mind taking the credit when a case is resolved faster.

You still haven’t answered if lawyers slow down cases!

Ok. No, lawyers do not try to slow down cases. There are lawyers who may not do very much – which is bad enough! However, just as lawyers cannot really speed up a case, lawyers cannot slow down a case either. That power rests completely with Social Security. The one exception is if a lawyer has to request a continuance for a scheduled hearing. However, that is not likely to happen without you knowing about it and the reasons for the delay.

So, what do you think? Are lawyers slowing down Social Security cases?

An email is making the rounds purporting to be a “history lesson” on Social Security for “young whipper snappers” who “weren’t taught or just didn’t know” the following truths about Social Security.  In case you doubt any of these, the email tells you “facts are facts.”

The email tells you:

• Social Security is VOLUNTARY and has been since FDR set it up.
• Participants would only have to pay 1% of their annual income.
• The money put into Social Security would be deductible from the participant income taxes.
• Money put into Social Security would go into Trust Fund and not the General Operating Fund.
• Annuity payments to retirees would never be taxes as income.

OMG! Voluntary? One percent? Deductible?

IS THIS TRUE?!?!

In a word: no. This very effective, get-your-blood-pumping, email is… FALSE.

Factcheck.org takes apart the email’s claims.

1. Not Voluntary. Contrary to the e-mail’s very first claim, FDR never promised that “the program would be completely voluntary.” It is supported by taxes and participation has never been voluntary. As historian DeWitt states: “From the first days of the program to the present, anyone working on a job covered by Social Security has been obligated to pay their payroll taxes. ”

2. Not 1 Percent. Another false claim is that FDR promised participants would pay only “1% of the first $1,400″ of income. The law FDR signed taxed income up to $3,000, for one thing. And while the rate was 1 percent for the first few years, the law FDR signed raised it incrementally in 1940, 1943, 1946 and 1949, when it reached 3 percent.

3. Not Deductible. Also false is the statement that Social Security contributions “would be deductible from their income for tax purposes.” The opposite is true. Section 803 of the law Roosevelt signed specifically says Social Security payroll taxes “shall not be allowed as a deduction to the taxpayer in computing his net income for the year.” So the claim made later in the e-mail – that Democrats “eliminated the income tax deduction” for payroll taxes – cannot possibly be true. There was never a deduction to eliminate.

4. Trust Fund Falsehoods. The message claims that FDR promised Social Security funds would be used “for no other government program,” but that Lyndon Johnson and a Democratic Congress later took Social Security into the General Fund “so that Congress could spend it.” This is twisted history. The government has always been able to use Social Security funds for other purposes when not needed to finance benefits. As DeWitt states: “[T]here has never been any change in the way the Social Security program is financed or the way that Social Security payroll taxes are used by the federal government.” All LBJ did in 1968 was to make Social Security taxes and spending part of a “unified budget.” As DeWitt notes, this was an accounting issue and “has no affect on the actual operations of the [Social Security] Trust Fund itself.”

5. Taxation of benefits. The e-mail also gets it wrong when it claims that Roosevelt promised that “annuity payments to the retirees would never be taxed as income.” It’s true that Social Security benefits weren’t taxed at first, but DeWitt writes that this was the result of a series of administrative rulings by the Treasury Department, not the result of Roosevelt’s law or anything he did or promised. And contrary to a false claim made later in the e-mail, it was not Democrats alone who “started taxing Social Security annuities.” Congress authorized taxation of Social Security benefits in 1983, when Republicans controlled the Senate, and the measure was signed into law by President Ronald Reagan, a Republican. The measure was part of a bipartisan compromise to shore up the finances of the system, which were then on the verge of collapse.

Read the entire email (with even more wild claims) and Factcheck.org’s complete analysis here.

Honestly, I do not expect this email to die here. The story is just too good. You want it to be true.

A good rule of thumb with emails is if it gets you excited or angry, it if promises to tell you the real truth, it is probably false. At least, check with Snopes.com or Factcheck.org.

I hear this one with some frequency. I am meeting with a client and they tell me that someone at Social Security told them that if they want to appeal, they have to wait sixty days before starting a new claim / filing a new application.

That’s just not true.

You do not have to wait any length of time after a denial before starting a new claim. You can start a new application the same day as you receive the denial.

I think the confusion comes from the 60 day (actually 60 + 5 day) time period you have typically have to file an appeal. That is the deadline by which you have to get your appeal submitted to Social Security. But the appeal deadline does not have to expire before you can start a new claim.