We don’t bill hourly, sell your data, or charge hidden fees. Instead, we get paid only one way — a share of your win.
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Our Stanford- and Harvard-trained legal team cherry-pick the best local lawyers in the country so you don’t have to.
In a space where many companies skirt regulations, we embrace them. We’re a licensed law firm and Certified B Corp.
Sam Byker, Founder & CEO
Since becoming a lawyer, I’ve seen many friends and family navigate the maze of programs meant to help those who are too sick or injured to work. Seeing their struggle, I felt there had to be a better way for people to access the benefits they’re entitled to as Americans.
So in 2018, I started Atticus to connect those in need with people who can help them get benefits from government and insurance. Now, we’re the largest disability firm in the country, and growing to assist people with Workers’ Compensation and Accident & Injury cases.
This is only the beginning. We’re on a path to get every American the help they deserve.
Sam Byker, Founder & CEO
Our core team comprises 60+ people from a wide range of legal, technology, marketing, and consulting backgrounds.
Jackie Jakab
Head of People
Jackie joined Atticus in 2019 as Legal Director and lead disability lawyer. In 2023, she became head of people to support the folks that help our clients. Before joining Atticus, Jackie practiced law at Boies Schiller Flexner. Outside work, Jackie loves building Legos and exploring Denver.
Michael Behr
VP of Product
Michael has been at Atticus since 2021 leading our product and design team. He is focused on fixing the “UX” of our country’s safety net. He previously led product on the Paramount+ and The New York Times apps. Any time he has outside of work, he’s chasing his two daughters around Los Angeles.
Stacy Mauro
VP of Engineering
Stacy joined Atticus to lead engineering in 2022. She is focused on building a platform that can scale with the needs of people in crisis, and the attorneys that serve them. Before Atticus, Stacy led engineering teams at Honey and PayPal. You'll likely see her getting interrupted by her two dogs in every meeting.
Mari Saigal
General Counsel
Mari is a lawyer with Atticus who has counseled hundreds of people seeking disability benefits. She received her J.D. from Stanford Law School. Prior to joining Atticus, she was a litigator with Munger Tolles & Olson LLP. In her free time, she enjoys reading fiction written by former lawyers.
Julie Bain-Kim
Head of Marketing
Julie has led marketing at Atticus since 2022, working to grow our brand to serve the greatest number of Americans in crisis that we can. She comes from having held various marketing leadership roles at EA and at LegalZoom, and lives with her husband and daughter in Los Angeles.
Victoria Muñoz Torres
Legal Advisor
Victoria leads the Atticus Workers' Comp practice and is focused on helping injured workers get the benefits they deserve. She has a J.D. from Stanford Law and previously worked as an attorney at Cravath, Swaine & Moore. In her free time, she's planning her next outdoor excursion with her dog.
Jackie Jakab
Head of People
Jackie joined Atticus in 2019 as Legal Director and lead disability lawyer. In 2023, she became head of people to support the folks that help our clients. Before joining Atticus, Jackie practiced law at Boies Schiller Flexner. Outside work, Jackie loves building Legos and exploring Denver.
Michael Behr
VP of Product
Michael has been at Atticus since 2021 leading our product and design team. He is focused on fixing the “UX” of our country’s safety net. He previously led product on the Paramount+ and The New York Times apps. Any time he has outside of work, he’s chasing his two daughters around Los Angeles.
Stacy Mauro
VP of Engineering
Stacy joined Atticus to lead engineering in 2022. She is focused on building a platform that can scale with the needs of people in crisis, and the attorneys that serve them. Before Atticus, Stacy led engineering teams at Honey and PayPal. You'll likely see her getting interrupted by her two dogs in every meeting.
Mari Saigal
General Counsel
Mari is a lawyer with Atticus who has counseled hundreds of people seeking disability benefits. She received her J.D. from Stanford Law School. Prior to joining Atticus, she was a litigator with Munger Tolles & Olson LLP. In her free time, she enjoys reading fiction written by former lawyers.
Here are just a few of the 100+ vetted firms in our nation-wide lawyer network.
Social Security Counseling Center
Southfield, MI
Cliff Weisberg has over 40 years of experience in Social Security Disability Law. In fact, he was one of three founding members of the National Organization of Social Security Claimant Representatives (NOSSCR)—which he’s grown to a 4,000-member organization.
Chermol & Fishman
National
Chermol and Fishman was founded by Dave Chermol, who worked for the SSA for 10 years. They know the Administration better than anybody, and use that knowledge to help their clients secure better outcomes.
Osterhout Berger Disability Law
Oakmont, PA
Lindsay Berger has always prioritized using her legal expertise to serve others. She began helping people with disabilities while still in law school, and became a partner at Osterhout Disability Law in 2010. In her personal life, she fundraises and volunteers for a number of local charities.
Morgan & Weisbrod
Dallas, TX
Morgan & Weisbrod has more Board-Certified Social Security Disability attorneys than any other law firm in the United States. They’re specialists in SS and VA disability law with over 45 years in practice. The team at Morgan & Weisbrod is known for their compassion, clarity, and consistent communication.
Impact Disability Law
Denver, CO
Impact Disability has focused on creating efficient systems and processes to ease the arduous process of getting benefits. As a client, you will feel their passion, because they truly love what they do.
Liner Legal
Cleveland, OH
Liner Legal are leaders in the SSDI field, and speak regularly at SSDI conferences around the country. Since their founding in 2013, they've handled thousands of disability, deaf discrimination, and long-term disability cases. They treat their clients like family.
Social Security Counseling Center
Southfield, MI
Cliff Weisberg has over 40 years of experience in Social Security Disability Law. In fact, he was one of three founding members of the National Organization of Social Security Claimant Representatives (NOSSCR)—which he’s grown to a 4,000-member organization.
Chermol & Fishman
National
Chermol and Fishman was founded by Dave Chermol, who worked for the SSA for 10 years. They know the Administration better than anybody, and use that knowledge to help their clients secure better outcomes.
Osterhout Berger Disability Law
Oakmont, PA
Lindsay Berger has always prioritized using her legal expertise to serve others. She began helping people with disabilities while still in law school, and became a partner at Osterhout Disability Law in 2010. In her personal life, she fundraises and volunteers for a number of local charities.
Morgan & Weisbrod
Dallas, TX
Morgan & Weisbrod has more Board-Certified Social Security Disability attorneys than any other law firm in the United States. They’re specialists in SS and VA disability law with over 45 years in practice. The team at Morgan & Weisbrod is known for their compassion, clarity, and consistent communication.
What happens after I submit my case online?
Our team will review it and reach out to you. From there, we'll get you on the path to solving your legal issue, and find you the right lawyer to take you to the finish line.
What kinds of issues can Atticus help with?
We can help with any serious, personal legal issue. We don’t serve businesses (only individuals), and we don’t help with minor problems or one-off questions (only serious needs).
We serve clients across the United States.
Our clients run the gamut, from low-income rural families to wealthy people with advanced degrees. And the lawyers we recommend are equally diverse, from solo practitioners to large big-city firms. Share your case with us and we'll quickly let you know if and how we can help.
What if I'm not sure I need a lawyer?
It's okay! Many of our clients aren't sure — and a lot who are sure turn out to be wrong. Share your case with us, and we'll explain your options and help you compare hiring a lawyer with potential alternatives.
For most clients, the choice is fairly obvious: Either you need a lawyer or you don't. But sometimes, there are gray areas, and if that's true of your case we'll help you compare all the possible paths and pick the right one.
How long will this take?
Usually between a few hours and a few days. Atticus's "speed record" from the time a client contacted us to the time she spoke with and hired a lawyer we recommended is about 45 minutes. But that's not typical: It's a pretty personalized process as we learn about your needs, discuss your options, reach out to lawyers, and coordinate introductions, so it can take time.
It also depends on you: Some clients want space to reflect on their options and contemplate their decision, and others just want their case to move as fast as possible. We can accommodate either style.
What is Atticus? Why do you exist?
Atticus is a new kind of law firm, on a mission to reinvent how Americans seek and find legal help.
Today, people with serious legal needs find it extraordinarily difficult to find and hire the right lawyer. They wonder: "Do I need a lawyer?" "What will I get if I hire one?" "How much will it cost?" And of course, "Which one should I choose?"
Atticus is a single place that anyone can turn for rapid, expert help answering those questions — for free. We diagnose clients’ needs, explain their options, and help them find and hire the right lawyer (or nonprofit) to move forward. To lawyers, we operate as a broker: We send them pre-vetted clients who want to hire them, and take a percentage of what they earn from successful cases.
Who are our clients? They can be anyone who encounters a crisis, ranging from a lifelong forklift operator who becomes too sick to continue working to a teacher who was injured and forced to miss work after being hit by a car. Some of our clients are poor and facing homelessness; just as many are wealthy and well-educated.
What unites our clients is the feeling that the legal system is daunting: Few know where to turn, or whom to trust. That’s where we come in. Using a mix of new technology and old-school legal expertise, we do whatever it takes to get our clients on the road to overcoming their challenges and moving forward with their lives.
How is Atticus different from other lawyer-finding websites?
Atticus is the first of its kind: Though we look like a technology company, we’re actually a licensed law firm — built by Stanford-trained lawyers with help from top legal experts in a variety of fields. As a result, we’re able to offer detailed legal advice and recommend specific lawyers for even the most important and complex cases.
If you look under the hood of other websites, you’ll find something very different. Our competitors aren’t law firms. And as a result, they’re legally prohibited from doing all the things you actually need: analyzing your case, giving legal advice, recommending specific lawyers, or guaranteeing those lawyers’ integrity. Instead, these sites make money by selling advertising space to lawyers, or hawking your personal information to the highest bidder.
Atticus, by contrast, is built from the ground up to offer a new kind of experience. We’ll answer your legal questions, make clear recommendations, and search far and wide to find the perfect lawyer for your needs. We build high-tech tools, but at the end of the day, they’re a way for us to connect you with personal legal expertise — not a substitute for it.
How does Atticus choose and recommend lawyers?
This is the hardest and most complex thing we do, and our primary area of focus. The short answer is that it’s a manual and involved process, and we look for qualities proven by academic research and professional experience to drive good outcomes for clients.
As context: There’s no objective way to evaluate lawyer quality, and there won’t be anytime soon. There’s simply no data set on which to base an evaluation (like a credible, comprehensive repository of case outcomes or client satisfaction). And even if there were, it would be nearly impossible to analyze it effectively given how many factors impact each case.
Therefore, we rely on a lot of human judgment and target a small list of key factors:
What's with the name?
Our namesake is Atticus Finch, America’s most famous fictional lawyer. In Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, he ran a small-town law practice with a big heart. Anyone in town could come to him with any kind of legal problem, and he’d give them sound advice and whatever help they needed — regardless of their ability to pay.
We believe every American deserves access to a lawyer like that — but today, for most of us, they exist only in fiction. So we’re working to build the modern-day equivalent: a place anyone can come for legal help that’s trusted, personal, and free.
How much does Atticus charge?
We don't charge anything! All our services are free to clients.
How does Atticus make money?
If you hire a lawyer through Atticus, we often make a percentage of whatever money your lawyer earns from your case. (For example, if your lawyer earns $1,000, she might give Atticus $100.) Your lawyer is prohibited by law from passing this cost on to you — so it never increases the amount you pay.
This is the only way Atticus makes money, and we chose it because it's the most ethical and mission-aligned way for us to operate. (At its core, it's the same basic model used by insurance brokers and platforms like Airbnb and eBay.) Atticus doesn't show ads, we don't sell your personal information, and we don't let lawyers pay to join our network or be recommended.
Can I get a free consultation with a lawyer?
From Atticus? Definitely. All our clients get the chance to talk with a lawyer on our staff, and it's always free.
From the lawyers we recommend? Probably. In some areas of law (like injuries or disability), lawyers will almost always give free consultations. In others (like immigration or litigation defense), most good lawyers charge money even for an initial conversation. We can often negotiate this down, but not always. We'll let you know how likely it is that you'll need to pay, and advise you what a fair price will be.
What if I can’t afford a lawyer?
We'll help you find the best option you can afford — which could be a nonprofit or pro bono lawyer; a non-lawyer service; "unbundled" limited-scope legal advice; or free resources that help you navigate your case yourself.
Keep in mind, too, that you don't always need money to hire a private lawyer. If you might win money through your case, most lawyers will work in exchange for a percentage of your ultimate winnings. We can help you figure out if this is possible in your situation.
Do you refer to nonprofits or pro bono lawyers?
Yes, regularly. But you should know that this is rarely an easy path: Legal aid organizations are wonderful, but most are overwhelmed and underfunded. Only rarely are we able to help a client secure full-scope representation. We'll do our best, though. We can recommend specific nonprofits, and if that fails, we can usually direct you to DIY resources or court self-help desks that can assist you in handling your own case.
At the bottom of many websites, you'll find a small disclaimer: "We are not a law firm and are not qualified to give legal advice." If you see this, run the other way. These people can't help you: they're prohibited by law from giving meaningful advice, recommending specific lawyers, or even telling you whether you need a lawyer at all.
There’s no disclaimer here: Atticus is a law firm, and we are qualified to give legal advice. We can answer your most pressing questions, make clear recommendations, and search far and wide to find the right lawyer for you.
Two important things to note: If we give you legal advice, it will be through a lawyer on our staff communicating with you directly. (Don't make important decisions about your case based solely on this or any other website.) And if we take you on as a client, it will be through a document you sign. (No attorney-client relationship arises from using this site or calling us.)
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