I’m not afraid to admit that I had a bias towards lawyers before I started working for a law firm. I thought all attorneys were like Saul Goodman from “Breaking Bad.” I had this vision of a bunch of high strung individuals shouting legal jargon at the top of their lungs while citing Black’s Law Dictionary. In reality it’s nothing like that. I am more high strung them most of our attorneys and I haven’t had to read anything from Black’s Law Dictionary in the past four years. In all reality this office is pretty laid back. Granted there are days I wish I worked for Annalise Keating so that there would be a little more excitement, but I don’t think I have enough energy to keep up with all of that dialogue. We find that a lot of my misconceptions about attorneys are also true about Veterans when they consider hiring legal representation. So, what is it like to hire an attorney for a VA Disability claim?
Most of our clients, regardless if they are hiring us for help with Veterans Disability, or SSI, have not worked with an attorney before. In fact, some of our VA clients are in their late teens or early twenties. It can be quite intimidating especially if you think that an attorney is some caricature from a television show. While there are some attorneys like that out there, we don’t employ them here. When you first call our office you will greeted by a friendly receptionist. If this is your first time calling they will ask if you need to talk to someone about Social Security or VA Disability. If you are interested in help with VA Disability you will then get transferred to one of our leads specialists.
If you are truly lucky you will get to talk to me at this point as I do some of our lead calls. Honestly this is one of easiest conversations you will have. You pretty much know all of the answers by heart. We will ask some basic information. This includes your name, dates of service, discharge type, and some other basic questions. If you meet the basic requirements we will then likely schedule you for what is known as an “intake appointment.”
Intake appointments are kind of like making it to Hollywood in American Idol. (I do apologize for all of the TV references.) In other words, you’re not a client of ours yet. This appointment is more in depth. The conversation will last at least 45 minutes and will cover a lot of information about your case. We often discuss your
specific claims, type of treatment history, medication, and even ask for you to give explanations of how it occurred from your time in service. Intake appointments can be a little intimidating at first, but we are professionals, and we understand that some of the information discussed can be difficult.
After the intake is complete our specialists are able to determine if we can assist you or not. If so you will be asked to fill out a new client package. Clients who complete intake appointments in person will fill this paperwork out during the appointment. Individuals completing an intake by phone will receive a packet in the mail. The packet will arrive in a bright yellow envelope and include paperwork, a copy of “How to get the Veterans benefits you deserve, a card with your case managers name on it, and a return envelope in which to send back the papers.
Once the paperwork is filled out and sent back to our office, you are then a client of ours. It’s really that simple. Your case manager will call to introduce themselves, and you move on to the next phase of the process. We will explain more about that in a future post.
If you would like to start this process, give us a call today via our toll-free number: 1-877-526-3457. If you can’t talk now, fill out this form now so that one of our specialists can call you at a better time.
