A clear SSA role, documented from the start.

A defensible appointment begins with substantive work. Requiring each appointed representative to perform a real, documented role creates a clear record of the claimant’s authorization, the services performed, and the applicable fee posture.

In most matters the role is already latent in the firm’s separate representation — the work is naming it and documenting it. Depending on the matter, examples include:

• •identifying, organizing, and transmitting records or file materials already in the firm's possession that bear on the SSDI/SSI claim;
• •flagging medical sources, treatment chronology, functional evidence, employer information, wage records, and third-party evidence already known to the firm;
• •coordinating workers' compensation, long-term disability, personal-injury settlement, lien, offset, wage-loss, unemployment, retirement, or other collateral-benefit issues that affect the SSDI/SSI matter;
• •reviewing alleged onset date, work injury date, settlement language, third-party recovery, earnings, and claim statements for consistency across proceedings;
• •reviewing key factual overlap before major SSA submissions where those facts also affect the firm's separate representation;
• •documenting the claimant's authorization for information sharing between the firm and Adam Whalan, EDPNA;
• •explaining the co-representation structure to the claimant, including that Adam is a non-attorney representative who may serve as the primary SSA administrative point of contact;
• •reviewing major SSA case events where they bear on the firm's separate matter — settlement posture, liens, offsets, damages, or benefits planning;
• •addressing legal questions outside Adam's SSA administrative role where they intersect with the SSDI/SSI claim or the firm's separate representation; and
• •periodically confirming that the firm's continued appointment before SSA still matches the services the firm actually performs.

Before any SSA appointment or fee document is filed, the parties settle the essentials in writing: who will be appointed before SSA; who serves as the claimant’s primary SSA contact; the role each representative will perform; how information may be shared; and the fee posture — whether Adam alone will seek an SSA-authorized fee, whether the appointed attorney will seek or waive one, and whether SSA’s fee-agreement or fee-petition process applies.

With the claimant’s written authorization, the firm may share records, treatment information, wage-loss information, benefit-related information, and other materials relevant to the SSDI/SSI matter. The firm remains responsible for protecting client confidentiality and for determining what may be shared consistent with its own professional obligations.

Any arrangement with a law firm must comply with applicable professional-responsibility rules. For New York law firms, relevant authorities include Rule 5.4 on lawyer/nonlawyer fee sharing, Rule 7.2 on referral compensation, Rule 7.1 on misleading communications, Rule 5.8 on certain contractual relationships with nonlegal professionals, and Judiciary Law § 491.

The parties should not assume that any fee will be authorized, allocated, assigned, or paid unless permitted by SSA and applicable professional-responsibility rules. Any SSA representative fee is a single SSA-authorized fee subject to SSA’s rules and limits; co-representation does not create additional fee revenue.

State professional-conduct rules, statutes, court rules, and local ethics opinions control; firms should evaluate the structure under the rules of each jurisdiction where the firm, lawyer, claimant, or services may be regulated.

If the firm cannot identify and document a qualifying role, the attorney is not appointed before SSA. The claimant may appoint Adam alone for the SSA matter while the firm remains in its separate representation — or the firm may simply refer.