[blindlaw] meeting with clients

[Locke Milholland]

Kathy,
In describing your line of work, you piqued my interest.  You mentioned 
someone paid their SSDI repayments using a credit card and ended up 
declaring bankruptcy.
Taxes and child support, in NC, can garnish wages.  Credit cards can't.
Student loans are exempt from bankruptcy relief, credit cards are not.
If you pay off taxes, child support, or student loans using credit cards, 
then declare bankruptcy, will you have made an end run around bankruptcy 
protection limits?

Could there be a heretofore untapped visa, Mastercard, American Express 
scholarship?
Locke



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Kathleen Hagen" <khagen12 at earthlink.net>
To: "NFBnet Blind Law Mailing List" <blindlaw at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Friday, June 08, 2007 8:14 AM
Subject: Re: [blindlaw] meeting with clients


> 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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>>
>
>
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