NPR Series on SS Disability

[olson_jr]

Originally Posted by bobabode

That's a very old story. There's been some big doofus ambulance chaser in a cowboy hat advertising for decades for this exact thing.

That would be Charles Binder, the The Disability-Industrial Complex King!

"In the past few decades, an entire disability-industrial complex has emerged. It has just one goal: Push more people onto disability. And, sometimes, it seems like the government is outmatched. This is especially true in the legal system.

Daytime TV in many places is full of ads from lawyers who promise to fight the government and win the disability benefits you deserve. There are tons of YouTube videos about getting disability -- one lawyer, one webcam. The standard form is a let's-get-real chat about how to win this thing.

There is one man who takes much of the credit for this industry: Charles Binder. "When we started," Binder told me, "I don't think anybody else was advertising." What's more, most people who applied for disability were denied and never had a hearing. Binder, and the lawyers who followed him, changed that. "I've created some of the problems for the government because so many people appeal," Binder says.


When he started in 1979, Binder represented fewer than 50 clients. Last year, his firm represented 30,000 people. Thirty thousand people who were denied disability appealed with the help of Charles Binder's firm. In one year. Last year, Binder and Binder made $68.7 million in fees for disability cases."