How a Lawyer Can Help Get a Disabled Child SSI Benefits

Caring for a child with physical or mental disabilities can often strain household finances. In order to help parents and relatives of disabled children provide for their child's needs, the Social Security Administration offers a benefit called Supplemental Security Income (SSI) to families who have limited income and assets. If your child has a medical condition that seriously affects their functioning for at least one year and your family's resources are below a certain threshold, Social Security may pay monthly cash benefits to you on behalf of your child.

You aren't required to hire a lawyer in order to file for SSI benefits for your child, but it's usually a wise move. Child SSI claims can be more difficult to win than adult claims, and having a children's disability attorney by your side is invaluable when you need to get important medical evidence or appeal a denial. Finding the right children's SSI attorney isn't a simple task, however, so you'll want to know what exactly disability lawyers do and where to look for one.

How a Children's Disability Attorney Can Help You Apply for SSI

There's a lot of work involved in applying for SSI for a child with a disability. You'll need to provide a substantial amount of evidence, including medical records and school records such as individualized education plan (IEP), if your child has one. Additional specialized testing is sometimes needed as well.

Gathering and submitting this information can be time-consuming and overwhelming for a parent who's already caring for a disabled child. When you hire a children's disability attorney or advocate, it's the firm's staff who will handle most of these tasks, so you can focus on taking care of your family and yourself.

What Will a Disability Lawyer Do for My Child's Case?

The primary job of a children's disability lawyer is to gather evidence and help you build the strongest case you can for SSI benefits. Your attorney should know how to present children's SSI claims (which have different rules than adult SSI claims). This generally involves reviewing your child's medical records and educational history in order to fill in any gaps in evidence.

Depending on your child's needs, your lawyer will want to see specific evidence showing that your child "equals a listing" or has a disorder that is "functionally equivalent" to a listing. "Listings" are the medical conditions that Social Security considers to cause childhood disability, along with the documentation needed to establish that your child has the condition. "Functional equivalence" is a way for children to get SSI without having to match the listings exactly, provided they have significant difficulty in their daily activities.

Getting SSI for Children With Mental Impairments

Children with significant learning disabilities, low IQs, or other mental impairments—such as depression Asperger's spectrum disorders, and ADHD—can qualify for disability. The tests, reports, and medical opinions needed to prove that a child's mental disability meets Social Security's standards for approval are complicated, however, and vary depending on your child's age.

An experienced disability lawyer knows which records the agency needs to see in order to find your child disabled, based on your child's age and medical condition. The attorney will also review the records to make sure they're complete and compelling. For example, your disability lawyer will likely be on the lookout for any gaps in treatment history, missing or outdated test results, and records that contain evidence that's not helpful to your child's claim ("bad facts").

After reviewing the records, your child's SSI lawyer will be able to address any "bad facts" in a manner that ethically minimizes the damage to your child's case. The lawyer can also contact school officials and medical providers to obtain any missing records, and make sure that any intellectual or cognitive testing meets Social Security's requirements as a "standardized measure of academic achievement." Your lawyer might also convince Social Security to administer (and pay for) any additional tests the child needs, such as an IQ test.

Getting SSI for Children With Physical Impairments

As with mental disorders, children can receive SSI benefits for physical disabilities such as cerebral palsy, spina bifida, and muscular dystrophy, among many others. And like with mental health, cognitive, or developmental disorders, each physical condition in the listing of childhood impairments comes with its own specific—and usually complicated—criteria that must be met in order to qualify for disability.

Depending on your child's medical condition, Social Security only accepts certain types of evidence as proof of disability. A disability lawyer will know what kind of records the agency needs to see in order to approve SSI benefits for your child, and can request these records from any hospitals, doctor's offices, or other medical providers who've treated your child. After reviewing these records, your lawyer can then submit them to Social Security on your behalf or let you know if your child needs any further testing.

Obtaining Medical Source Statements

Whether your child has a primarily mental or physical disorder, having supporting opinions from your child's doctors plays a large role in winning the SSI claim. If your child's doctors aren't willing to provide you with a supporting statement or aren't sure how to write one, your child's lawyer can contact the doctor to discuss the matter. Sometimes an attorney is better than a parent or guardian at understanding and addressing a doctor's reluctance to help with a disability claim. An experienced child disability lawyer can often help alleviate a doctor's concerns.

When a Children's Disability Lawyer May Be Able to Speed Up the SSI Process

Getting Social Security to approve a disability claim can be a long process. Anything you can do to speed up the process means your child can get SSI benefits sooner. While hiring an attorney doesn't guarantee that you'll get a faster decision in your child's SSI disability case, your lawyer will know how to avoid the kinds of issues that can delay your child's claim.

For instance, Social Security regularly denies an initial SSI disability claim because the application didn't contain enough information about the child's condition, such as the names, treatment dates, and physical location of important medical providers. Your attorney will know to include all of the necessary evidence you'll need to prove your child's condition is a disability. This can increase the chance that your child's claim will be approved without having to appeal again or go to a hearing, which can add many months to the decisionmaking process.

How a Disability Lawyer Can Help With an Appeal

It's not uncommon for Social Security to deny a child's application for SSI disability the first time, but an initial denial isn't generally the end of the claims process. You have the right to appeal the denial, and it's during the appeal process that most disability claims are won—specifically, at the hearing level. Before you can get a hearing, however, you'll need to appeal by requesting reconsideration from Social Security.

Reconsideration involves asking a different disability examiner to look at your child's SSI claim again. If your child's application for benefits is denied at first, you'll receive a letter from Social Security that gives you instructions on how to request reconsideration and explains the reasons for the initial denial. A disability lawyer will know how to address these reasons why and fix them on appeal. Additionally, your child's attorney can keep on top of important appeal deadlines and handle any communications regarding the appeal with Social Security.

Why Your Child Should Have a Lawyer for the Disability Hearing

The majority of disability claimants—children and adults alike—who are ultimately awarded benefits aren't approved until after they've had a hearing with an administrative law judge (ALJ). Even though the hearing is the second stage of appeal, it's often the first opportunity for you and your child to speak directly to the person who is deciding the claim.

It's also the stage where having a disability attorney is especially crucial. That's because a successful disability hearing requires an understanding of the relevant medical terminology, preparation for answering the judge's questions with reference to the proper legal regulations, and the ability to successfully cross-examine expert vocational and medical witnesses. An experienced children's disability lawyer is familiar and comfortable with this process and can prepare you and your child for the hearing.

Perhaps most importantly, having a disability lawyer represent your child at the appeal hearing will significantly increase your child's chances of winning an SSI claim. A 2017 study from the Government Accountability Office—the most recent available—showed that disability applicants with lawyers were approved for benefits at hearings twice as often as those who were unrepresented.

How to Find a Disability Lawyer for Your Child's Case

Many people start looking for legal representation online. You can type in search strings such as "child disability lawyers," "child SSI attorneys near me," or "Social Security children's disability attorney" into your preferred web browser and come up with plenty of results. Lawyer directories (such as two sites that are part of the Nolo family, Lawyers.com and Avvo.com), are another popular option, as are state bar association lists of active attorneys. These resources allow you to search by location and area of law to narrow down the field of prospective attorneys.

Be aware that not all attorneys and law firms who specialize in adult SSI cases will take on childhood claims, although many do. If you're struggling to find a disability lawyer in your area, you might want to shift your focus to education attorneys, who may have more experience working specifically with children, teachers, pediatricians, and school boards.

How Much Does a Disability Lawyer Cost?

Social Security disability lawyers work on contingency, so you don't pay the attorney upfront. Instead, your lawyer will be paid only if (and when) your child's SSI claim is approved. The lawyer's fees will come from the SSI back pay your child should get once that happens. The total amount of attorney's fees your lawyer can collect is statutorily capped by Congress at 25% of any back pay owed to your child up to a maximum of $9,200 (in 2025). This fee cap is adjusted every year to account for increases in the cost of living.

Questions to Ask Before Hiring a Children's Disability Attorney

Because child SSI claims make up a small percentage of disability applications, many Social Security attorneys can go years without seeing a child's case. You'll want to ask your potential representative if they've ever handled a child's SSI case before. Ideally, you'll find a lawyer who has experience with multiple childhood disability claims—or, even better, experience with your child's particular impairment—but any disability attorney worth their salt will perform the due diligence necessary in order to zealously represent your child.

Many lawyers offer brief consultations free of charge, so you can set up an appointment to meet with an attorney and get a sense of how they operate. During the consultation, you should ask the lawyer whether they think your child's medical condition might meet or be functionally equivalent to a listing. Since disability attorneys don't get paid for work they've done on losing cases, the attorney should be able to quickly assess whether your child has a good shot at SSI (in the hopes that you'll choose them as your representative and sign a fee agreement).

If you're lucky enough to have several excellent children's disability attorneys in your area, you may wish to decide on a lawyer who most closely matches your communication style and personality. So if you want your representative to handle almost everything about the SSI claim, allowing you to focus your energy on other facets of your child's wellbeing, choose an attorney who is fine dealing with school authorities or only contacting you about major milestones in your child's case. But if you want to take a more hands-on approach in developing the claim or want more frequent status updates, make sure you get a lawyer who can meet those needs.