Title:
From TikTok to the Courtroom | Michael Liner on Disability Rights

Subtitle:
Navigating Disability Law – Insights from the Backwards Hat Barrister

Transcript:

Alycia Anderson: Welcome to Pushing Forward with Alycia, a podcast that gives disability a voice. Each week we will explore topics like confidence, ambition, resilience, and finding success against all odds. We are creating a collective community that believes that all things are possible for all people. Open hearts, clear paths.

Let’s go.

Welcome back to Pushing Forward with Alycia. I’m Alycia, and today I’m joined by my co-host Marty, because we are talking about some really interesting things. And I know he can add some richness to the conversation. I wanna start with a question. Let me ask you if you’ve ever learned something on TikTok that you thought, ” Why didn’t anyone explain that to me before?”

If so, today’s guest is absolutely for you. Michael Liner is not your typical lawyer. Yes, I said lawyer. We’ve got a lawyer in the house today. He’s a Social Security disability attorney, who’s gone literally viral on TikTok. We’re talking about millions and millions of views, helping us navigate a really confusing system in America that’s often misunderstood.

And, dare I say, he’s also pretty entertaining. So I’m liking the entertaining, but very helpful lawyer vibe. He’s the founder of one of the most innovative disability law practices in the country. He is known on TikTok, and I’m assuming other social media platforms. You can correct me if I’m wrong.

Michael Liner: Backwards hat barrister. Michael blends legal expertise with lived disability experience. Yep. We have somebody that understands our path to people. Good stuff. He just got really a nice, compassionate vibe. We were just getting to know each other before we kicked off the show. I feel so good about myself. You’ve made me feel so great about myself. I’m just so excited to be here now.

You sold me.

Alycia Anderson: Good. Are you ready to push forward even more? I love it.

Michael Liner: Let’s go.

Alycia Anderson: Thank you for your time. I have really enjoyed diving into your content since our paths have crossed, and I think you’re doing really great things. But before we get into the legal side of things, can we start human, not that legal isn’t human, but take us back.

Did you imagine when you were growing up, or seeking your career, or whenever the moments happened, that you would eventually be a lawyer, an advocate, and a TikTok phenomena? How did this all happen?

Michael Liner: There’s so many different paths that my mind goes down when you asked me that question. You already introduced me this way. Growing up, I went to a special school for children who had learning and behavior issues in the Detroit area, where I’m originally from. Out of a crowd of children who had behavior issues, I was the worst. I was expelled from that school. My mom couldn’t work because she had to be on-call for the schools that I attended when I was growing up. Did I ever see myself as a lawyer? Yeah. It’s the only thing I ever wanted to do.

My dad’s a lawyer. My dad retired many years ago. His life as a lawyer looks nothing like mine. My dad’s the stereotype, corporate, buttoned-up guy. He looks at me like I’ve got six heads every time we’re in the same room together. But I guess what I’ve done as a lawyer just fits my vibe.

It fits my personality, which is a little bit out there. So on one hand, this is the only thing I ever wanted to do, but there’s a lot of people who thought that I wouldn’t be able to do it because of some of the challenges that were in my path. Having learning disabilities, a lot of behavior problems. When my mom sometimes runs into my old teachers when she’s just out in the community, they say, “How is Michael doing?” And they don’t mean it like they think that I’m doing well, they’re worried that I’m in jail. Did I think this is where I would end up?

Yeah. It’s the only place I wanted to be. Did I actually think that I would have a career that blends my past, my present, and my future where I want to go? No way. I’m living a dream life. I truly am living a dream life every single day.

Alycia Anderson: Before we jump in the next one. What is the dreaming part?

Michael Liner: I own my time. In the sense that I wanted to be here with you right now, so I am, and there’s nothing that’s in my path. I get to help people every single day. I practice law much less than I used to because now I have one of the larger disability practices in the country. But instead of helping individual clients, what I’m doing is I’m building systems to give individualized attention to clients at a larger scale, which is challenging, but it’s exciting. It involves me spending a lot of time dreaming, thinking, writing, talking to people who I find smart. I don’t spend a lot of time talking to other lawyers because they’re boring.

They’re what I think you expected. I would be using legalese and big words. I have the grammar and vocabulary of a typical sixth grader. That’s still how I talk every single day to clients, judges, it doesn’t matter. But what I get to do every single day is just help people. The type of law that I do helping the community that this podcast serves, that all of my various mediums serve, are the people who are neglected by society and who need it most. I get to help people keep a roof over their heads. I get to help people put food on their table. It’s so cool that not only do I get to have fun every day, I get to help people, but I can make a living doing that.

I get to lead great teams of people who are inspired to work with me and side-by-side. So when I say I’m living a dream life, it’s not like some falsity. I actually can’t believe that this is what I’m breathing every day.

Alycia Anderson: Congratulations. It’s amazing.

Michael Liner: Yeah.

Marty Anderson: Well, I think that’s really awesome Michael, and I want to pipe in and welcome you to the show just once more. And I think a fun fact is Alycia grew up with an attorney. Her dad, Peter, was a worker’s comp attorney. You remind me a little bit of him in some ways with the quirky attitude and all the fun.

He’s passed unfortunately, and we miss him dearly. But that was a awesome lead-in. And again, we’re talking about disability, one of the most complex, widely varied, extremely complicated subjects in our realm in this United States of America, in the world, really. One in four Americans. Over a 1.3 billion, disabled people across the world.

And that kind of leads us into this question. You work in this most complicated system out there. You literally have to be an attorney to understand it. It’s so complicated. We just want to ask you, when was the first moment that you realized you wanted to work in this industry?

Was it something that you noticed was broken that you wanted to try to fix? How did it happen?

Michael Liner: You’re asking the wrong question, so I’m gonna tell you the right question to ask me. It’s not when I realized that I wanted to work in it, it’s when I realized that there was nothing else for me to do that would give me this purpose but what I’m doing. So I’m not actually correcting your question. I’m giving you the answer that I think you’re looking for here. What I mean by that is just being transparent. I graduated law school at the worst time possible in history to graduate law school, 20 10. The crash had just happened the year before. It was impossible to get jobs. I had to create an opportunity for myself. There weren’t law firms waiting to hire recent law grads.

In fact, I had multiple jobs that were offered to me that were rescinded before I even started the job just because of economic factors. That’s how tumultuous it was. I ended up being hired, going along with your story, by the largest workers’ compensation firm in Ohio.

It’s actually the largest plaintiff’s firm in Ohio by someone who, frankly, I owe my career to. Not because he taught me anything about being a lawyer, but he taught me about being a business owner. His name is Dave Nager. He could sit here, and you would say the same thing about him. He’s not gonna wear a baseball hat, but I’ve never seen the man wear a tie.

I’ve never seen him do anything that looks like a lawyer. At this point, I’m very fortunate that he’s a peer, he’s a friend more than anything else. I ended up only working for him for two years. But what he taught me was how to talk to clients how to get new clients, how to just approach the world in an authentic manner, ’cause that’s how he is. And seeing how it worked for him, it really inspired me. I got here because it was an opportunity that made sense for me. He happened to be looking to develop this practice here at the time. I didn’t come in and say, “Give me a job.” I said, “I’m gonna figure out a way to blow this up.”

I’ll tell you a story that if he was sitting here, he would tell you too. I remember in the job interview, I could tell it was going really well. And he goes, “When it comes to salary,what are you thinking?” And I go, “I’m gonna tell you right now, you’re gonna wish that you could pay me a million dollars.” I’m a kid fresh outta law school, and I looked at him and told him that. Now he ended up paying me $45,000. So I didn’t get too far with that million dollar ask. What happened was from day one, I started building a business, being my authentic self. There still to this day not a billboard, a TV commercial, a radio ad, nothing that has my name, my face, my voice, nothing on it. It’s all, how do I educate the public? How do I give people accurate information in a world filled with misinformation? That’s what ended up leading me to become a social media influencer, I guess you would say, is just wanting to give people the information that they’re not getting elsewhere, or that they’re getting wrong from different sources. I started building this business. There was a gentleman back in 2011. His name was Eric Conn. Have either of you ever heard of Eric Conn before?

American Greed, which is a show on MSNBC.

They’ve done a feature on him. He was front page of New York Times, Wall Street Journal. He was a disability lawyer in Appalachia. Not too far from where I am, like three, four hours drive, but in Kentucky, West Virginia, southeast Ohio. And he was in cahoots with a judge and a doctor. The judge would go into a drawer, pull out every file of this one attorney.

The attorney would have every one of his clients seen by a doctor, the same doctor who would write a report saying they were all disabled. The judge would award the case based on the opinion of this doctor. My profession was rocked. Okay, so I’m fresh outta law school, just starting, just building, trying to build a name for myself. And all of the sudden, it became almost impossible to get approved for disability benefits nationwide. And I’m sure a lot of the people who are listening to this, if they were applying for, or receiving, trying to get disability benefits back in the years 2011 through 2013. The disability approval rates literally dropped in half in 2011. As a business opportunity, my old boss just felt like it wasn’t something that his office could support anymore. So he gave me a choice.

He told me that I could be a workers’ compensation attorney, or I’d have to find my own way and start my own firm, and that it didn’t work out. It wasn’t gonna work out to stay there. And that’s the moment, Marty, where I realized. It wasn’t when I realized that I wanted to be a disability lawyer, it was after I already was a disability lawyer. I made the choice that even if this isn’t a gravy train, like a lot of people thought it was, there’s nothing else that I wanted to do. And I think back to some of the earliest clients that I have. So my practice looks very different now, of course, than the 26-year-old Michael.

I just turned 40 this past year. So at this point, I’m 27 years old. My first clients were mostly children. A lot of them had the exact same learning disabilities, behavior problems. Now those are always very difficult cases, but I remember meeting face-to-face with all of these families and thinking, “I’m not just getting these people disability benefits if they need it. When I share my story with them, I’m giving these moms and dads hope to say, ‘My child might need help today, but with the right assistance, maybe they could be like this guy, who is now helping people in that situation.'” I was very fortunate. I grew up in a house that had basically unlimited resources.

My parents sent me to these private schools. They were able to get me tutors, whatever I needed to sort through my issues. Not everybody’s so fortunate. Most people aren’t. And if I hadn’t come from that background, I probably would’ve been receiving SSI as a child myself. I looked through some of my own medical records because I have a lovely but a hoarder mother, who has hung on to every single drawing I’ve ever made. But certainly every medical record, even from my youth.

And when I read through the things that these doctors were saying about me. I was on the worst end of many of the child clients that I saw earlier in my career. So there was just nothing else that I wanted to do. And it goes back to what I said earlier. I’m living a dream life right now, being able to help these people.

Alycia Anderson: This is the power of our community coming together and being the authentic representation like you’re saying, and advocating for others to have space. And you’re doing it in such a cool way through law and through social media. Will you identify if you don’t mind? You don’t have to if it’s uncomfortable.

What is your disability? Do you mind sharing that?

Michael Liner: Sure.And it’s visible if you’re watching on YouTube, or any of the visual platforms. I had severe ADHD as a child. I had a seizure disorder as a child. Thankfully, I grew out of seizures when I was about 11 or 12 years old, which you can. But as an adult, I have motor tick syndrome, so that’s like that tick that you just saw on the neck, or you’ve probably noticed before. They’re also in my wrists and in my feet. I’m just constantly clicking them. And I have cluster headaches. So, it’s a lot of neurological issues. The month that I left Dave Nager’s office and started Liner Legal back in 2013 was when I had my first cluster headache. And I assumed that I was gonna have to close down my entire practice.

because the cluster headaches, the pain is so severe they actually call them suicide headaches. There’s actually a suicide rate that’s attached to people who get them. They’re so painful. And the medicine doesn’t really control them when I’m in a cluster period. And until they could get my treatment right, I basically spent two months not being able to do much of anything. I usually get cluster headaches every three years that last for a couple months. Thankfully, I’m self-employed because in those windows of time, I’m borderline non-functional.

I know how helpless it feels to be my clients, and I’ve experienced that journey firsthand. But I’ve created this world around me that I can still live in, and work, and survive. even if Michael has to be in bed for a day. And that doesn’t excite me. That’s not how I wanna live my life. But when I am in those cluster periods, I’m largely non-functional. Because you certainly can’t shoot TikTok videos. You can’t appear before a judge when you’ve got pain that’s so severe right behind your eyes.

Even laying down is miserable. But what it does is I think it’s bonded me to my clients, so I’m very fortunate because not everybody’s so lucky.

Alycia Anderson: What you said before, about your clients and how you have been privileged growing up and had all the resources that you needed. That there’s things out there, Social Security, disability, things that children, and parents, and adults need to survive, and to have the resources they need to literally live and function. That’s why I invited Marty on the show because I come from sort of your background, where I grew up in a household that my dad was a lawyer, too.

I had everything that I needed, too. I never have had to use the services that are there for us, if we need ’em. But Marty comes from the other side, where he did utilize services.

Marty Anderson: Yeah. That begs the question for some of our listeners out there, in the realm of disability, and especially onset early as a young child. You may have parents that are well to do, but does that disclude you from having the ability to apply for benefits or not?

Michael Liner: Actually, as a child, it does. Because the purpose of SSI, it’s not about an inability to work.

Marty Anderson: For children, SSI benefits, it’s a recognition of the fact that it’s expensive to have a special needs child. And oftentimes, there’s moms like mine who can’t work. Now, that didn’t affect my family’s ability to keep a roof over our heads. But in many circumstances, two incomes are needed. So if a parent can’t work, or if they’re always having to go to doctor’s appointments, or if there’s just extra things that are needed for the child. If you have a special needs child, that’s a lot of therapy. That’s gas to get to the therapy. Normal activities become more expensive to do. Even diet, food. Food can be more expensive. Yeah, before you go too far on that. In the cases of when a child with well-to-do parents turns 18, let’s say, and they have a falling out with their parents, do they immediately become able to apply at that point? Become qualified?

Michael Liner: No matter what. At age 18, they can apply because you’re no longer dependent on your parent for resources. So even if you had parents like mine, who were well-to-do. Once you turn 18, as long as you don’t have money in a bank account with your name on it, you can apply for SSI.

And that’s a big thing. There’s a lot of families who have a special needs child that’s not eligible for SSI before they turn 18. But once they reach the age of majority, once they turn 18,they can apply for SSI. Actually, if they’re able to demonstrate that they became disabled before turning age 22. If they have a parent who is receiving Social Security benefits themself, either retirement or disability, or once they have a parent who’s deceased, they can draw Social Security disability benefits on their parents’ work record.

That’s another benefit. It’s actually called Disabled Adult Child Benefits.

Alycia Anderson: Wait, let’s back up for a minute. So for listeners who are brand new to this conversation, ’cause I think this is all really useful information. Can you explain what Social Security disability benefits are and who they were originally designed to serve? And also maybe where you think it’s falling short today?

Michael Liner: Sure.

That’s probably a loaded question. It’s a compound question.

Alycia Anderson: Okay.

Michael Liner: That’s what we call that. When you stack question, on top of question, on top of question. Compound.

Alycia Anderson: I have a bad habit of doing that. Compound questions.

Michael Liner: Okay. Now remember how our economy has changed over time. If you go back to the origins of Social Security, we were a labor economy. The Social Security Disability program started in, I think, the 1950s, maybe the 1960s. It was started because people’s bodies broke before they had reached retirement age. So that’s originally who was intended to serve. The person who had worked their entire life. But because people were working in coal mines in West Virginia, people were doing heavy labor. And that was more the norm back then, ’cause our economy looked different. Their bodies just didn’t last. And so it was to provide a basic income for them in that circumstance. The adult program. Here’s the basic definition of disability. You have to be unable to work by reason of a medically determinable impairment, could be mental issue, it could be a physical health issue. But you have to be unable to work for at least 12 months or more, or have an impairment that’s expected to result in death. I know that’s a morbid twist there. A lot of times, people will be diagnosed with a terminal illness, where there’s not 12 months left in their life when they’re diagnosed. So it does at least provide coverage in that circumstance. Was there a part of your question that I missed?

Marty Anderson: There was another part to that. Is there anywhere you see that this system is now running into trouble, or falling short, or being misused, maybe?

Michael Liner: So this is exactly where I love coming on and busting myths. Okay. When, Because of people like Eric Conn. That lawyer in Appalachia that I was telling you about early. ‘Cause of a lot of articles that are out there. Frankly, even, our current political administration, I’m not gonna get political on you. But I will tell you that there are a lot of people who have a misconception that these benefits are too easy to get and that there is so much more money that’s going out than is coming in. That the people who are receiving disability benefits, it’s just a bunch of fraudsters who need to go back to work. That is the biggest myth in and of itself.

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Michael Liner: Each of those pieces. All of this is objectively demonstrable, by the way. You’re not hearing my opinion. You are hearing calculated fact from government documents. First of all, there is not more money going out of the Social Security Disability Trust than is coming in. It’s in the news cycle all the time now about how our nation is at a crisis, where the Social Security Retirement Trust is about to be depleted. I think it’s now down to 2032. If Congress doesn’t reappropriate some funds, we don’t raise money another way, Social Security won’t be able to pay Americans the full retirement benefits that they’ve been promised.

It’s not that they’re not gonna get anything, they’re gonna be paid about 80% of what they’ve been promised. Okay? That’s true for Social Security retirement. That is not true for Social Security Disability. In fact, when Social Security has actuaries like an insurance company does who come in, they make long-term projections about the health of the program right now. They only project out 75 years. So right now, they’re already making projections ’cause we’re in 2026 into the next century.

The disability retirement trust. The disability trust is not expected to be depleted. There is the same amount of money going in as there is going out. Okay.

Marty Anderson: That’s in line with the statistics of there’s around 73 million Americans in the Social Security system. From my quick Google search, I saw that there was 53 million that were in the retirement stage But only 7 million Americans that are taking advantage of the disability services.

Is that sounding correct?

Michael Liner: Exactly. So, the reality is that one, there’s not this big problem of too much money going out and not enough money coming in. A second reality. I talked about how there’s people who say people on disability are just a bunch of fraudsters, okay? Statistically, it is a fraction of a fraction of a percent, where even the Social Security Administration’s Office of Inspector General has been able to find fraud in the program. Now, if you look at any insurance company, any insurance system, the rate of fraud or problems is exponentially higher than that. Okay? So really, it is a better governed program than any insurance company. Banks expect to lose money on credit that’s not paid back to them a percentage of the time. It is actually a very tight and well run system. But what perception has done and perception is everything. Because people think there’s so much more money going out than there is coming in. The people who are collecting disability benefits are just a bunch of fraudsters. It has created this idea with so many of the people who need it most. They’re afraid they’re too scared to apply for the benefits that they need. They think that there’s a scarlet letter where if they ask for this help, they’re gonna be marked forever.

Sometimes the clients of mine who need the help the most are the ones who are most scared to raise their hand and say that they need it.

It’s that West Virginia coworker who was just taught by their daddy to show up to work. Keep going. Pain is normal. Don’t quit. Keep going. what does that do to your health, to your lungs, to your back, to, to, to your entire body. So a lot of times the people who need this help the most are the most afraid to raise their hands. Or there’s a cultural stigma that talks about getting it. You have paid for these benefits. You are not accepting a handout. That is not how this works. It is not money that could be going to war overseas.

It is not money that could be going to other programs that we have in the United States When you are an American worker. You look at your pay stub that you get twice a month, every two weeks, whatever, it’s at the bottom. It lists the word FICA in two places, actually three places. A percentage of that FICA goes directly to Social Security Disability, not just Social Security retirement, Social Security disability. In case you become unable to work, you have earned the right to collect these benefits. You’ve paid it just like you’ve paid your car insurance. When you get in a car accident, nobody thinks I’m too scared to call Geico and let them know that I was in an accident. When their car gets ruined, it’s the first call you make. But when people are hurt and they can’t work anymore, they’re too scared to file for disability. You earned the right, you paid into this system

Alycia Anderson: And these false narratives that are, that just perpetuate the problem around disability in general, from Social Security Disability to workplace, like advocacy to all kind, it is our community that is constantly masking and hiding and afraid to raise their hand because we’re afraid we’re gonna be canceled out.

And it’s so d It is literally so damaging that it’s crippling. Like it’s literally what’s crippling us.

Marty Anderson: And I’d like to just also share for a moment, if you will, my. And Alycia a personal bit of my story and touching on this stigma I fell out of a car at 22 months old and I come from a family of nine children and I was the only son, and my dad left at the age of five because he was heartbroken and.

So that put me on a path of a real precarious path in life. And it wasn’t until I was 13 years old that when I had a near death experience and having gangrene in my right leg from a sore on a leg brace that put me in the hospital for six months, that I ended up finally getting Social Security benefits.

It was also due to a mom that was raising nine children on her own that couldn’t afford the bills and didn’t have the job because dad was the breadwinner. And so in a sense it was, that’s where these benefits are meant to come in and help people. And in many other circumstances as well.

Onset late in life all kinds of tragedies. But the safety net is there for these reasons. And, but yet it carries the stigma. So once you start receiving these benefits or once you start thinking about applying for them you then have to also carry the burden of all these stigmas on top of already having to go through all these other things.

But, we talk about disability inclusion in the workforce a lot. If you ever follow Alycia’s podcast or see some of her stuff, we talk to companies all over the globe about how can we incorporate disability inclusion. Number one. I want to just reflect on that number. I threw out 7 million people in the United States on disability claims, but yet one in four Americans are disabled.

Where. That’s quite a big difference, right? So a lot of us are working, right? And so that’s where I wanna also chip away at that stigma and that bias and say you may think that all of us are just loafs and on the system and on the dole, but in reality, the vast majority of us are struggling out there in life and trying to cope with our disabilities.

This is our, this is our calling though, right? So like we’re all very, the three of us are very lucky in that through hard work and a lot of luck. We’ve been able to put together these platforms that we have, right? Like I’ve got, I don’t know how many followers on different social media accounts.

Michael Liner: You guys are reaching a lot of people through your podcast and through all the different things that you guys are doing. It is on us, not just this, people representing the community professionally, but also as people who are living in it. This is our daily lives too be the ones who bust that stigma and let people know that, hey, you can ask for help.

You don’t need, but, I’m answering ahead here just because I have what other people, what’s written in literature is a disability. Doesn’t mean I’m disabled. I’m differently abled than other people ’cause I’m way better at a lot of things than other people who wouldn’t call themselves disabled.

You guys are too. That’s why you’re here, right? I’m not gonna win certain contests because of the limitations that I have, but I’m gonna beat you at something else. And that should be a part of the education that, students like me when I was a child, were getting and I think it’s on us to start passing that along now through these various channels.

Alycia Anderson: Yeah, and you’re doing a great job at that, honestly.

Michael Liner: I’m glad you noticed.

Alycia Anderson: Yeah. It’s hard to not. Like once you hit my algorithm, there you are! Bam. There he’s again. So it’s good stuff. You are, your platform is powerful. It’s educating. And honestly, what I love about you the most is you’re approachable.

And you’re real. And you use the word in the beginning authentic. And that’s exactly what you are. And I think that gives a sense of comfort for a lot of people navigating these things, whether you’re that person with a disability or even all the other people in all these programs trying to navigate and run them and just all this stuff.

So I think it’s powerful what you’re doing.

Michael Liner: What I’ve always hated are people who, I’m a lawyer that wants to help people. I’m just a guy who happens to have gone to law school. This is not my identity. My, my identity is. What you’re seeing right now? Just how can I spread good throughout the world? I’ve been given a really unique skillset that I can use to help people. Would I be able to do what I do if I didn’t if I hadn’t gone to law school, if I didn’t, have this really awesome law practice and amazing people that I get to surround myself with every day. No. But now that I do, that’s like in the re the. There’s no degrees hanging in this office. It’s just I’m a guy. And I’m gonna use what I have to help as many people as possible.

Alycia Anderson: So helping people as many as possible, like how what, how do people work with you? What is your North star in your business? What is, what does our community and beyond, how do they reach out to you to do the work? What does that look like?

Michael Liner: Sure. So first of all, I wanna educate people. It’s not about hire me as your lawyer. Yeah. That is how I, put food on my table. But let me educate you, let me teach you about what’s there. You can follow me on my social media accounts, the backwards hat, barrister. I’m on TikTok, Instagram.

YouTube, you name it. You can find me everywhere. I’m sick of my face. But. If you’re looking for some help in a professional capacity, you can visit my website, liner legal.com. I have awesome people here who literally it’s like I get to work with a bunch of Michaels people who show up every single day excited to help others. Almost everybody that’s in my office either has a disability themselves, worked for Social Security, is the parent of a child with a disability. So they get it. They’re they, it’s easy to get excited to work with people who have that same spirit in them that I have. But yeah, let us help set the record straight for you as the bottom line.

If benefits are your path, we can talk about that. But otherwise, just let us know what we can do.

Marty Anderson: I had to cut in. Just quick on that also, does your services just start and end with the application process or do you help with navigating the Ticket to Work program? The employment first initiative some of these other trusts that are available for setting up for disabled children to put away for future causes a lot of those types of things.

Michael Liner: We, we have partners that we work with on all of those things. So helping people navigate the Medicare journey. People who again, do the ticket to work stuff. One of the things that’s so cool about my office, and you can check me on this, there’s nobody else in the country that has a team like this in their office.

We have a team of people in our office that are called client concierges. They don’t. Work on my client’s Social Security cases. What they do is they we’re not just here to help you win your Social Security case. If you are my client, if you’re going through this process, by definition, you have to be out of work or at least earning a very minimal amount of money, not enough money to pay your bills. So when that happens. Your Medicaid, you, you’ve gotta do Medicaid renewals. You’re trying to figure out SNAP benefits for food. You might be getting some sort of housing voucher. Maybe you’re struggling to pay your mortgage and it slips into foreclosure. These are the realities of my clients, this client concierge team in my office. They don’t get involved with your Social Security case. What they do is they step up and try and piece together everything else.

So my clients aren’t just getting a guy that’s gonna try and help them get disability benefits. We’re trying to navigate you through a difficult period of your life so that you can, have dignity restored in a world that doesn’t have a lot of dignity. For people who are going through this process. That’s actually the part of my office that I’m most

Alycia Anderson: Wow.

Michael Liner: is the concierge program. Yeah.

Alycia Anderson: Dignity restored. I love it. Thanks. We’re gonna leave all your information in the show notes for everybody to like, reach out to you, follow you, share all of your social arounds to the masses so we can all learn and grow from you.

Marty Anderson: And I’ll say they are very exciting and people are gonna have a fun time watching your videos. They’re great. I did spend some time to it as well.

Alycia Anderson: Okay. So

Did we miss anything?

Michael Liner: I don’t think so.

Alycia Anderson: Okay. So before we leave, like I wanna take two minutes and do a couple like fun questions to end on a fun vibe and just get a little of your personality. Okay. So lightning questions, coffee, tea, or your favorite drink that keeps a lawyer going.

Michael Liner: Coffee.

Alycia Anderson: Okay. Oh, I get that.

Michael Liner: I’m like a six cup a day guy.

Alycia Anderson: You had Starbucks when we started. Okay. How many TikTok drafts are currently sitting in your phone?

Michael Liner: Zero.

Alycia Anderson: Oh, good.

What is one thing that every disabled person should know about their rights?

Michael Liner: That they have them and I know that sounds maybe obvious to some people, but there’s so many people who are used to just. Taking punches. Taking punches because they think that’s the way that it’s supposed to be. You have rights, you are a human. And you’ve, people are so afraid to ask for help, but help is there.

Marty Anderson: Do you have a Cliff Notes link for that? List of rights.

Michael Liner: I’m gonna make one as soon as we hang up.

Marty Anderson: Please do that, please.

Alycia Anderson: Okay. Last question. Finish the sentence. Disability advocacy means.

Michael Liner: Again, I’m gonna say something that I’ve already said, but this is really what I believe. It means restoring dignity to people who have been neglected by society.

It’s my calling, it’s my purpose. It’s in the mission statement of my firm. it’s something that I can’t really turn my camera here, but sitting right behind my desk is something that reminds me that’s why I am here. My job is to help people keep their necks above the water and to be able to do it with their head held high.

Alycia Anderson: I love that. Michael, this has been such a, we’re gonna be friends. I’m so happy to meet you. You’re such an awesome person. Thank you for everything that you’re doing for all of us. And we wrap up the show with a pushing forward moment. So I just asked you a bunch of questions, but I’m gonna ask you one more thing.

Do you have a little mantra or something that you live by that you can gift away to our community to be motivated to move forward in their own dignity and strength and empowerment in their own way?

Michael Liner: So I’m recycling here again, but I truly bel but I truly believe this and this is like the something that I believe in more than anything. You aren’t, I hate the word disabled.

I wish there was something else that they call their community because it starts with those three letters, DIS which means something’s bad, something’s wrong, you lack something. We are not disabled. I am not disabled. I’m differently abled. I’m, I have a disability. I do things. I am more creative than most people. Thankfully I, I think a lot quicker. I’m emotional, I’m sensitive. I’m a lot of things that other people are afraid to admit, but because I have those things. I’m crushing it in the world. And I’m not trying to say that in a braggy way, but and everybody can look in the mirror and find something that they are, that, that makes them unique, that they can smile about, that they can feel good about too.

Alycia Anderson: They can own and say they’re crushing it. Like it’s okay for disabled people to go. I am crushing this space in my life

Michael Liner: yeah.

Alycia Anderson: right now, and this is. Why, you know it’s powerful.

Michael Liner: Absolutely.

Alycia Anderson: Thank you so much your time, Michael. Like I cannot thank you enough, to be honest. I thought this was gonna be a pretty dry interview.

I dunno why

At the beginning,

lawyers, I was like kinda is this gonna be a lawyer thing? But this was such an amazing, so fun. Congratulations on being that type of person. You’re amazing and it’s been really great to meet you.

Michael Liner: thank you

Marty Anderson: I’d also like to say thank you, Michael for jumping in and being a part of this, and thank you two for allowing me to be here today in this discussion. I’ll leave you with one thought. There is another word that starts with DIS. That doesn’t mean something bad. What about distinguished?

Alycia Anderson: okay.

Michael Liner: true. Yeah. There’s other ones out there

Alycia Anderson: It’s a little too buttoned up for us though today.

Marty Anderson: True.

Alycia Anderson: Okay, I’m gonna do the wrap up. We ready? Thank you Michael for coming on the show. I cannot wait for this episode to come out. It’s gonna be amazing. Thank you to all of our community for showing up again and every week, definitely share this episode out to the masses. I know you loved it just as much as we did.

This has been pushing forward with Alycia, Marty, and Michael, and that is how we roll on this podcast. We will see you next time.