How Atticus Employees Help Their Families Get Benefits: Iris's Story

At Atticus, our golden rule is simple: we’ll never connect a client with a lawyer we wouldn’t trust with our own family member or loved one—and we truly mean it.

Below is a story from a series featuring Atticus employees who’ve helped a loved one apply for disability benefits.

Iris Soto

Iris Soto, a Client Experience Manager at Atticus, was in the final rounds of interviews for the job when her mom learned she’d won disability benefits. It felt kismet, because at Atticus, she’s able to connect to clients every day and tell them she’s been in their shoes. She knows firsthand how challenging the application process is and how difficult it is to wait for benefits.

For decades, her mother worked for the state of Arizona as a school custodian, and she loved it. But moving furniture and stacking chairs eventually took their toll on her five-foot frame, and she started going to the doctor and seeking assistance with the physical labor at work. “It got to a point where she had to get surgery, because she started prolapsing because of all the heavy lifting that she had done,” says Soto. Her mom took an extended leave from work, but was determined to return. “She tried to go back to work like any normal, hard-working person, like, ‘No, I can still do this.’ She tried to go back to work, but she couldn't, so she ended up quitting.” 

It was a short retirement. Just a year later, Iris’s mother reapplied for her job. “She found out again that it was too physically demanding.” That was the tipping point when Iris and her mom started researching options, and instead of an early retirement, they pursued Social Security Disability Insurance. 

“I don't think a lot of people know, it's not just the application itself, it's all the paperwork that comes after that the Social Security Administration requests. That's what really had me and my mom really confused on the process,” she says. To make matters worse, the SSA kept canceling and rescheduling appointments, further confusing matters and extending the timeline.

An added challenge for the pair was that English is her mother's second language, so Iris served as the communication liaison for the application process, which lasted 18 months. During that time, her mom tapped into her retirement savings to help make ends meet.

When her mother finally received benefits, it was a weight off the family’s shoulders. “Her demeanor totally changed. She got back to gardening and doing all these little things around the house. She had been so scared to spend a little bit of money on things that weren't absolute necessities. I think a big thing for her was to finally feel that little bit of financial independence.”

Iris’s experience with her mom fuels her work here at Atticus. If there’s one takeaway she can pass along, it is this: “Get any attorney, because they're going to clear up the layers of confusion you'll be in when applying for disability.”