Chicago Disability Attorneys Representing Lawyers

Are You Eligible for Disability Insurance Benefits?

To be eligible for long-term disability benefits, lawyers must prove that they are disabled under the definition provided in their plan documents. There are two basic definitions used by disability insurance policies, although the first can come with some nuance:

• Own occupation: Your medical conditions make it impossible to do your current, most recent job (as you performed it).
• Any occupation: You are totally disabled and unable to do any type of work, including relatively unskilled, simple, and low-paying jobs.

Own occupation is naturally a much stronger definition. And if you purchased an individual or private policy as an attorney, you probably selected a policy that carries this definition of disability. However, attorneys often face unexpected difficulties when filing a disability claim, for a few key reasons.

Disability Insurance Companies Often Mischaracterize Legal Work

Here’s a common scenario. Let’s say you’re a litigation attorney primarily focused on preparing and taking cases to trial. You then develop a disability that prevents you from performing these duties. However, you can still perform more general or transactional (and less lucrative) attorney work. Depending on the terms of your disability insurance policy, your insurer might not consider you disabled even if you have a nominally “own occupation” policy.

Attorneys who are highly specialized should consider defining their occupation more narrowly and precisely through a “specialty own occupation” individual disability insurance policy. Then, if you lose the ability to perform this specialized role due to a disability, file your insurance claim right away—do not change your occupational duties first!

Disability Insurance Companies Often Disregard “Invisible” Disabilities

Legal work requires a high degree of cognitive skill—memory, focus, emotional intelligence, communication skills, and more. Cognitive and emotional disabilities and other mental health issues can make it simply impossible to practice law.

However, long-term disability insurance companies are often highly skeptical of these types of “invisible” injuries and disabilities, which may not be obvious to outside observers and may only be diagnosed through self-reported symptoms and clinical assessments (as opposed to “objective” medical tests). Proving that you are truly disabled and overcoming an unfair denial may require a much more substantial amount of evidence than more “obvious” injuries.