I hired an attorney to get my long term disability to reinstate my benefits when on over payment was due. My long term disability company kept my benefits until the over payment was paid back. Now that the over payment has been paid back the attorney has filed a judgement against me stating that I owe the attorney a percentage of the money I paid back for over payment, the money after over payment has been paid plus a percentage of future benefits.. I feel like I have been taking advantage of because after my over payment was paid back I automatically would begin receiving the benefits as stated in my long term disability group paid plan.

If the attorney got a judgement, it means he went to court, they had a hearing (or you did not show up) and you owe him the money, He (in most areas) can depend on where you are at, garnish the money you receive.

You had a contract with the attorney to pay a percentage of what was won. If you did not owe that part, the hearing, where the judgement was issues, was when you prove what was or was not owed.

I agree with Fr. Chuck. I would venture a guess he took your case on Contingency... which means if he wins.. he takes a percentage, and if he lost you would owe nothing (that would be in the contract) otherwise you would have been paying by the hour and all extra costs win or lose. Something that would be rare in these cases. But to get a judgement they would have had to bring a separate action against you... and win it. And apparently did. That's when you would have proven WHY you did not owe them that money ( like you paid them up front and not on contingency).

For your own peace of mind...find the papers you signed and read them again. See if you were on contingency or not, going to be hard to fight it now (and expensive), but at least you might see if you really did owe them or not ( unless your case was pro-Bono you did owe them one way or the other)and just misunderstood or forgot. And having accompanied my wife through a Workman's comp case...it IS easy to be overwhelmed or misunderstand

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Originally Posted by dddrury68

I hired an attorney to get my long term disability to reinstate my benefits when on over payment was due.

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You seem to believe that the services of this lawyer should be free to you - why is that?