[blindlaw] meeting with clients

[Kathleen Hagen]

Hello,  At present that creates somewhat of a problem for me as I am 
handling many overpayment social security cases.  They are labor intensive 
and usually quite large.  What I'm having to do, and it might change if the 
office says it costs too much money, is use a reader/assistant to go through 
the file with me, separate it into relevant documents I'm going to need, go 
with me to Social Security office to review files on occasion, help me 
organize information for clients when filling out overpayment waivers.  My 
secretary provides releases for clients to sign.  I take braille notes and 
discuss what will happen with my clients, write the memoranda, and mostly 
try to calm down the clients.  You see, what makes these cases so hard is 
that the agency usually doesn't catch up with someone for five or six years, 
by which time they can owe up to $70,000 or higher in overpayments.  I even 
have one case right now where a client had worked out a plan to pay back the 
overpayment, including using his credit card.  He had to file bankruptcy 
because his credit balance was so high.  Then, SSA just recently contacted 
him and told him that he should never have received SSDI at all, so now owes 
another $26,000.  Needless to say, he's hysterical.  That's really the 
hardest part.  Finding resources for clients to help them get back on track. 
It's a little like helping someone filing for bankruptcy.  And I definitely 
need to use a reader to help with the paperwork.
Okay, so that was a long and rambling answer.  I usually have my 
reader/assistant go with me to court or administrative hearings.  Right now 
I'm very lucky, although my reader is not, because she's unemployed and can 
pretty much be at my beck and call until she gets another job.  If my reader 
can't go, i ask one of the clerks working in our office, if it's in the 
summer, to go along.  After all they get the experience of seeing meetings, 
courtroom pleadings, or even mediations.  You will probably find other blind 
people on list who are much more organized than I am.  I also will eagerly 
await what others say.
Oh, and in recent years I don't have to use a reader much for research as 
West Law is pretty usable on line.  That's also great because when I'm 
quoting a case and citing, I can cut and paste right on the computer.

Kathy Hagen
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Craig Spencer" <craigspencer2.0 at gmail.com>
To: "NFBnet Blind Law Mailing List" <blindlaw at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Friday, June 08, 2007 3:18 AM
Subject: Re: [blindlaw] meeting with clients


> Hi every one:
>
> I was just wondering how do members of this group efficiently handle 
> meeting
> with clients and taking a record of what took place in the meeting i.e 
> note
> taking/recording....
>
> At what point do you utilize your support staff?
>
>
>
>
>
> Thanks Craig
>
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