It is easy to determine the attorneys fees in social security cases.  Basically, the cost is 25% of the initial award; however, the maximum fee that an attorney can receive on a social security claim is currently $5,300.00

Is It A Good Deal?

Absolutely.  Your social security attorney works on contingency. That means that if you don't get paid, your attorney doesn't get paid and there's nothing that you owe, ever.  However, if you do win your social security claim and receive an award for back-pay of benefits, your attorney will never receive more than 25% of that initial award.  In most legal cases like this (car wreck cases, and other personal injury cases) the standard attorney's fee is no less than 33% of the award, and in some instances may be as high as 50% of the award.

Furthermore, your social security claim will most likely result in "continuing benefits".  In other words, you'll most likely continue to receive monthly social security payments for years and years to come.  Your attorney will not receive any money from your continuing monthly benefit payments. That money is all yours.

Here's an example.  Let's suppose a social security claimant wins his claim and is awarded $10,000.00 in back pay and a continuing monthly benefit payment of $1,000.00 per month for the rest of his life.  Let's also suppose that the claimant is 36 years old and receives the monthly payments every month until he reaches the age of 58, then dies.  Below is a tally of this claimant's earnings.

In the above example, the claimant would have received a total of $274,000 from the time of his disability until his death.  In this instance the attorney would have only received $2,500.00 (25% of the initial $10,000.00 payment) and nothing more.  That's a great deal.