NEXT TIME AROUND WITH THE VA, I WANT MY LAWYER! --

Veterans' advocate Jim Strickland starts a

regular column on VA Watchdog.

Veterans' advocate Jim Strickland begins a series of regular columns for VA Watchdog.

If you would like to contact Jim about his columns, you can email him here...

Column below:

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You want Disability Benefits from the VA. You were injured on active duty and your military records detail your injury. You’ve heard that you should choose a Veterans Service Organization (VSO) to represent you.

With similar disability claims (to Social Security for example), you’ll probably retain an expert attorney on a “contingency fee” basis. The attorney is paid only when you win your claim. The attorney's fee is limited to a percentage of your retroactive payment, usually 25% and a maximum dollar amount.

Consider that the attorney has a lot of experience in cases like yours. He has special training & expertise in disability law. He has the strongest incentive offered in America; a cash payout if he does a good job for you and nothing at all if he fails.

Then consider the VSO representative who helps you. He’s had some training in the complex VA system. He's no lawyer but he’s familiar with VA law. Your VSO rep may be a volunteer or he may be a paid employee who does this as a full time job.

The VSO volunteer is noble to give the time to you. He'll help you get started but he's likely to have dozens of other Veteran clients and he only works a couple days each week. The VSO employee is salaried, working the same schedule VA does. He has hundreds of C-Files assigned to him and while they're waiting his action, VA isn't working on them.

What are your choices? You can’t hire that lawyer. The Veteran who wishes to have experienced, expert, licensed, motivated and accountable legal representation is restricted by law to a VSO. Veterans are viewed as incapable of making their own decisions regarding legal representation when they face the VA.

Sen. Larry Craig (R-ID) has introduced a bill to allow Veterans a choice, S. 2694, Veterans’ Choice of Representation Act of 2006 is “A bill to … remove certain limitation on attorney representation of claimants for veterans benefits in administrative proceedings before the Department of Veterans Affairs…”

The VA system works well overall. The health care provided is a model for the nation. The home loan and various school loan and grant programs work smoothly. Unfortunately, VA fails miserably in its duty to quickly and fairly process and adjudicate your claims for disability benefits.

The disability benefits process is strikingly adversarial. Your choice of a spokesperson will be a decision affecting the rest of your life. The VSO representative system is archaic, obsolete and costs the Veteran time and money because of inadequate representation by poorly trained, overburdened personnel. Senator Craig has said, "Murderers, rapists and pedophiles can hire an attorney; why are veterans treated as third, yes third class citizens?"

Applying for disability benefits to VA today is as legalistic and complex as any criminal courtroom in America. The Social Security disability process is similar and applicants at SSA are thought foolish if they approach without a lawyer.

Viet Nam Veterans of America (VVA) are vocal in their support for change as are National Veterans Legal Services Program (NVLSP). Strongly opposing any change are Disabled American Veterans (DAV) and Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW).

Those opposing change tell your legislators that Veterans aren’t competent to decide to retain an attorney. “It’s for the Veterans own good.” DAV leadership says as they fight to protect hundreds of their jobs from any competition by lawyers.

I’m a life member of DAV. I filed a claim in October 2003. Since then I’ve had numerous different DAV reps on my file due to a sort of revolving door mentality at DAV. There is no continuity to processing my claim and I’ve not had any communication from DAV in over 18 months. A letter I wrote to them in March is still unanswered in July. Although DAV is still listed as my representative, I’ve been handling my own claim for two years, a decision I made when it became apparent DAV wouldn’t be there for me.

I won my claim two weeks ago. I won the benefits I’d asked for and deserved. In the notice from VA, it was mentioned that VA would notify DAV of my benefits change.

Next time around with VA, I want my lawyer!

Contact Jim Strickland here...

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Larry Scott

(go back to VA Watchdog dot Org Home Page)

	Web www.vawatchdog.org

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