San Francisco Disability Lawyer

A disabling illness or injury can strike at any time. People are injured in serious car accidents every day, and you never know if a routine wellness exam with your primary care doctor will reveal a serious issue. Luckily, there are ways that you can protect yourself in the event that you find yourself unable to work.

Employer-funded disability insurance policies (as well as those paid by the employee as part of a group plan benefit with the employer) may provide long-term disability benefits. You may also be eligible for Social Security disability benefits, but only if your condition lasts, or is expected to last, 12 months or longer.

San Francisco Long-Term Disability, ERISA, and Disability Insurance Claims

Our experienced team is ready to fight for the benefits you deserve. We offer a No Recovery, Zero Fee Guarantee, meaning we only get paid if you do. Our San Francisco long-term disability lawyer can help you throughout the appeal process and will file a lawsuit if necessary:

• If you have been denied benefits, we can help prepare and file your administrative appeal with the insurance company in an effort to maximize the chances that your LTD claim will be approved.
• If your benefits have been cut-off or terminated, we can help prepare the appeal to have your benefits reinstated.
• If you have exhausted your administrative appeals with the insurance company, we may be able to file a lawsuit against the insurance company.

We’re familiar with the tricks and sneaky tactics that the insurance company will use to delay and deny your claim. They’ll delay the process by requesting duplicate or unnecessary documents, ask you to participate in tricky phone interviews, and conduct video surveillance. Let us handle the communications with the insurance company instead so you can focus on your recovery (and we’ve got helpful tips for dealing with surveillance, too).

Ortiz Law Firm Represents San Francisco Long-Term Disability Claimants

Our office is located in Pensacola, Florida, but attorney Nick Ortiz can represent people anywhere in the country. He has a bar law license in the state of California, so he can represent claimants at any bar in the state of California. In terms of communicating with you, we use an electronic signature service for a lot of the correspondence, and then we e-mail and fax and communicate by phone, so everything can be done by mail, fax, and e-mail.

Most long-term disability cases (not all, but most) are governed by a federal regulation called ERISA. Under ERISA, you do not have the right to a jury trial, and in most cases, you do not have the right to engage in extensive discovery. At the end of the day, that means most of the work in a file is paper-driven, involving a lot of brief writing and a lot of correspondence by mail.

RELATED POST: Why You Don’t Need to Hire an Attorney in Your State to Appeal an ERISA LTD Denial

San Francisco Courts, Government, and Department of Insurance Information

• Northern District of California | United States District Court
• Courts of Appeal – DCA – California Courts
• Government website for the State of California
• California Department of Insurance

Northern District of California Case Summaries

• Insurance Company Had No Reason to Doubt Claimant’s Credibility
• Doctor’s Conclusion Outweighs Subjective Complaints
• Plaintiff is Entitled to a Description of Additional Material Necessary to Perfect the Claim
• Modest Activity Captured on Surveillance Doesn’t Equal an Ability to Work
• Court Rules Plaintiff Has Established That He Was Disabled
• Court Rules Plaintiff’s Records Support a Finding of Disability

San Francisco Social Security Disability Claims

The Ortiz Law Firm is now accepting Social Security disability claims in San Francisco. During the initial application and request for reconsideration stages of a claim, we’re able to communicate with the Social Security Administration via their website, phone, fax, and mail. As for hearings before an Administrative Law Judge, the Social Security Administration now conducts hearings over video and phone, so you and your representative will not have to appear at the local hearing office.

San Francisco SSA Locations and Resources

• Directions to the local Social Security Administration Office
• Social Security’s website
• Information about the San Francisco Office of Hearing Operations

Schedule a Free Case Evaluation with a San Francisco Disability Lawyer

The long and short of it is this: you should not allow our geographic location to limit your contacting us to see what we can do to help you. We handle long-term disability, ERISA, disability insurance, and Social Security disability claims. If you suffer from an illness or injury and are unable to work, then please give us a call right away at (888) 321-8131 to discuss your legal rights. We evaluate each unique case on a case-by-case basis and we would welcome the opportunity to discuss your legal rights with you.