If you are an injured federal and postal employee and are looking for legal help, there are some things that you need to know upfront.

1.  OWCP cases are frequently won or lost on technicalities. OWCP commonly  interprets the law strictly in favor of Uncle Sam and against you. It is quite rare for OWCP to make any kind of effort to be helpful to a claimant. So, if you don’t know the law and OWCP procedures, you are likely to get tripped up.

2. Legal representation is expensive. Anyone who says differently is either ignorant of reality or less than fully honest.

3. Regardless of whether you win or lose, OWCP never reimburses your legal costs. Anything you pay for legal help comes straight out of your pocket.

4. Technically, representatives are required by law to charge by the hour for actual services rendered. Some attorneys provide work-around arrangements which evade this requirement. The two most common are “no recovery, no fee” contingency and flat rate fee arrangements.

5.  Neither of these arrangements provides an incentive for a representative to actively work on your behalf.

6.  The alternative to this—one which reduces your costs while giving the attorney an incentive to actually do work on your behalf—is legal coaching. This page explains what legal coaching is and how it may be helpful to you.

What is Legal Coaching?

Legal coaching (also called unbundled legal services) is when you hire an attorney to assist you with a legal case without actually representing you. 

Basically the attorney provides advice and information that you need in order to understand and handle your case, but does not deal with judges and other persons for you.

How a Legal Coach Can Help You

Confirm that you have a good claim. OWCP law is complex. Proving that you have been injured or become sick is only the first of many steps in the process of winning your claim. An attorney can review your evidence to determine if you have sufficient evidence to meet OWCP criteria for establishing that you have compensible work-related injury or illness and, if not, what evidence you need to obtain. An attorney can also tell you when your claim will not be sufficient to meet OWCP requirements.

Find and explain the law that applies in your case. To determine what evidence to look for and eventually present to OWCP, you must know the laws and regulations that apply to the particular circumstances of your case. You can research this on your own, but it is likely to be more difficult for you—a non-expert—than for an experienced attorney. An attorney can explain the law to you so that you understand.

Help you prepare documents. A legal coach can help you draft arguments or respond to OWCP inquiries or check documents that you have prepared. Your legal coach may be able to work as an "editor" to make sure any legal document you prepare is correct, logical, and persuasive. 

Help your doctor. Just as attorneys are not normally medical experts, doctors are frequently not knowledgeable concerning the law. Occasionally, a doctor will desire guidance to understand the laws applicable to a particular case so that the doctor can better prepare a helpful report. A legal coach can, at your request with the doctor’s cooperation, assist your doctor with such matters.

Answer questions along the way. Preparing and arguing a claim necessarily involves maneuvering within a complex and impersonal system that is largely indifferent to your needs and desires. You not only need to understand legal rules but also plug them into a winning strategy — a strategy you will typically have to fine-tune in response to OWCP’s actions. It can help you a lot to run your strategy by an experienced lawyer.

Legal Coaching is Not for Everyone

If you use a legal coach, you represent yourself. The attorney that you use as a coach has no contact with the other party or the decision-maker. 

Most importantly, the attorney is not responsible for your case strategy nor does the attorney have a duty to ensure that case deadlines are met.

A legal coach is not your attorney. Rather, a legal coach is merely a source of information, assistance and advice; but you are responsible for handling your case yourself.

Because many people are not capable of self-representative, you must know your own limitations before deciding whether to hire an attorney representative or a legal coach.

When an attorney represents you, the attorney has full control of all aspects of the case. The attorney determines your case strategy and how much or how little work must be done. 

In legal coaching, you have full control of—and responsibility for—all aspects of the case. You decide how to argue your case; what needs to be done and when; and you control how much or how little advice and assistance the legal coach provides you.

The bottom line here, however, is you and you alone are responsible for your case.

Consequently, full representation is necessary if you cannot understand the complexities of the law even with assistance or are unable to write complex and persuasive arguments.

If you are, however, capable of representing yourself with some assistance, legal coaching is most ideal in situations which (1) do not involve a formal court hearing (for example, administrative proceedings) and/or (2) cases where you cannot recover attorney fees and costs even if you win your case.

Federal workers’ compensation cases are a prime example of administrative proceedings wherein you cannot recover attorney fees and costs even if you win your case. No matter what, the federal government never reimburses attorney costs or fees in federal workers’ compensation cases.

As a consequence, legal coaching can be less expensive than obtaining full representation on an hourly basis. And it has an advantage over hiring a representative on a flat rate basis, since an attorney who works for a set fee amount has no incentive to provide the bare minimum of representation.

If you need or desire full legal representation, please visit our main website.

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