Why I stopped trusting my disability lawyer's first settlement offer

Back in March, my lawyer in Fresno pushed me to accept a $12,000 offer from the insurance company, saying it was the max I'd ever see. I turned it down because something felt off, so I asked around and found a paralegal at the Social Security office who told me the adjuster had a history of lowballing. I pushed back, we went to a hearing, and ended up with $38,500 plus back pay. Has anyone else had a lawyer who rushed you to settle just to close the file faster?

2 comments

2 Comments

grace_wright21d ago

Right? That gap is basically the difference between scraping by and actually breathing. I had a similar thing with a family member's case, the first lawyer kept pushing a quick number and once we switched, the new one found years of missed paperwork that doubled everything.

the_emery21d ago

Man, that story hits home hard. I had a similar thing happen with a workers comp lawyer back in 2019, he kept texting me every week saying the offer was "the best we're gonna get" and tried to make me feel dumb for holding out. Turns out the insurance company had a standing policy to start at 40% of what they'd actually pay, and my lawyer knew that because he'd settled with them like a hundred times before. Once I dug in and got a second opinion from a different firm, the final number tripled. It's wild how the person who's supposed to be on your side is sometimes just trying to turn over the case file as fast as possible. That $12k vs $38k gap isn't a small difference, it's the kind of money that changes whether you can pay rent or not.