Binder & Binder one of the Nation's largest, and probably the best known, Social Security Disability law firms has filed for bankruptcy. The firm became known for their tacky T.V. commercials showing attorney Charles Binder wearing a cowboy hat.
The firm's slogan: "We'll deal with the government. You have enough to worry about." is well known by those who spend a good part of the day watching day-time television. Binder & Binder spends approximately $20 million a year in advertising alone.
Now, it is widely rumored that Binder & Binder is pulling all their T.V. ads off the air. Binder has also announced that it will be closing offices in several cities through out the nation, including Hartford, in an effort to reduce costs.
Over the past two to three years, Binder's exorbitant budget and heavy caseload was used by the critics of the Social Security Disability programs to wrongly allege that the system was being overly generous to claimants. Such criticism lacked basis. In fact, Social Security Disability Law Firms have always had to work with a very small margin of profit. Binder & Binder's bankruptcy debunks the wrong notion the lawyers are getting rich out of the Social Security Trust Fund. Moreover, all well informed disability lawyers have known that the boom in SSDI applications has been over for quite some time. (The boom probably occurred from 2010 to 2011.) As I have explained in previous posts, the boom was the result of the Nation's demographics, not of a system that was overly generous to claimants. Unfortunately, lousy politicians in Washington don't want to do a serious analysis of Social Security's problems. They act as if the Nation's demographics had not changed. Instead, they find it easier to play the blame game and portray disability lawyers as the cause of the crisis.
