A law firm who represented me for my disability hearing failed to defend me and were so negligent they caused serious damage to my case that caused me to lose any chance of being awarded a settlement. They also left irrelevant and harmful evidence in my file which ruined me in front of the judge.

I hired a law firm to represent me for my disability case.  After waiting nearly four years (way longer than usual) they completely destroyed my case. This firm has many complaints against them for doing this.  During the four years, I had to do much of the leg work myself in gathering my medical records.  They barely ever returned the few phone calls I made and didn't even call me to tell me my hearing was postponed during COVID as I turned up to an empty building.

Regarding the possible malpractice.  During the phone hearing I had no idea who my attorney was, I was never told her name and she did not take the time to call me before the hearing. The judge directly asked her if she had given me a consultation beforehand and she lied under oath and said she had. I had no prepping or guidance or anything to prepare me before the court.

The attorney did not seem to know anything about my case - it seemed she was just handed a folder she didn't bother to even look through.  She had no idea what year I had filed in and she was missing my most important medical files from my primary doctor for my condition. 

During the hearing, she didn't say one word to support me.  The judge had to tell her to question me, I believe she was supposed to do so in a way to help my case.  This did not happen, it was more like an interrogation in which she got openly irritated with me when I could not hear one of her questions.

The judge has asked her if she had examined my case file and if she wanted everything included for the judge's consideration to which she said yes that she had.  The firm left extremely damaging and irrelevant information in my file that had absolutely nothing to do with my medical condition.  They apparently just threw everything in a folder without looking at it. However, when the judge saw this information, her attitude completely changed toward me and she was completely focused on this information and away from my medical condition.  It was so obvious that any attorney should not put something like that in there and this was one of the key factors that hurt my case. 

Additionally, I had emailed one of the attorneys at the firm and asked them to please not to use a certain character witness under any means.  They told me not to worry, they didn't even see that person's name written anywhere but they would double-check for me.  This was a former toxic friend from my church with whom I had ended a friendship because I found out from other church members the terrible stuff she would say behind my back. Thus she was extremely angry over this and the law firm did not follow up to withdraw her name as I had specifically requested. Thus she was indeed contacted and said negative stuff about me to try and make sure I didn't win my case. And she is on disability so knew exactly what to say.

Finally, after the vocational examiner had questioned me about my ability to work and perform certain tasks and threw a list of possible jobs I could do, the judge asked her if that was her opinion of whether I could do them or if it was from medical evidence. The VE said it was her opinion and again a good opening was left for this attorney to cross-examine her.  She stayed silent and when the judge basically told her to do so or if there was anything she wanted to say on my behalf, she said no, she agreed with the VE who seemed to have covered it all!

So I knew my case was lost and when I requested a copy of my file I wish I had just gone and represented myself.  I had wanted to hire a new attorney to do an appeal for me, but they apparently went ahead and filed an appeal for me without even asking.  This not only took away my opportunity to hire a new lawyer but will now add months to me being able to submit a new application.  I should have won this case, my doctor treating me for years signed off yes to everything saying I have serious issues that prevent me from employment.  They caused me to lose a lot of money that I desperately needed after years of barely surviving and struggling with my condition.  They are a big as seen on TV law firm that doesn't care about their clients and just chugs people through the process as if they are products on an assembly line.  Their reviews are one star,  full of tales of people who have been through a similar experience to me.  And they have a ton of obviously fake reviews they have written themselves on Google to mislead people and the reason I say that is because they are so careless they have used the same profile photo on different reviewers and have forgotten to take off generated profile names like "human-robot" and the owner will reply with a thank you using the wrong name.  

I apologize for the lengthy complaint, but I wanted to include everything to see if I have been a victim of malpractice or not, and if I am wrong or don't have a case then I can at least move on from this extremely disappointing and upsetting experience.

Thank you,

Melanie