Veterans Benefits Attorney Chris Attig discusses cases that his Firm has a special interest in, and the Firm’s Claims Review Process.

Veterans Benefits Attorney Chris Attig gives a general overview of the VA Disability Compensation Claim Process.

Fiduciary.

f-eye-doo-SHE-er-ee

Noun.

1.  One that stands in a special relation of trust, confidence, or responsibility in certain obligations to others.

2. Syn. Frauduciary: a fiduciary appointed by the Dept. of Veterans Affairs to (mis)manage a Veteran’s money.

I’ve written before about the VA’s Fraudiciary Program, and the rampant abuse of Veterans, theft of their money, fraud, and criminal malfeasance that occurs in this VA Program.

Well, it is now official – no branch of the US Government has any desire to stop these problems.  The [...]

I’m not kidding.

Since July 2010, combat veterans diagnosed with PTSD have not had to corroborate their stressor event to get disability compensation from the VA.

That’s because a Federal Regulation – 38 C.F.R. 3.304(f)(3) for you regulatory law geeks – says that if a veteran’s PTSD stressor relates to the Veteran’s “fear of hostile military or terrorist activity” and a VA psychologist (or psychologist that contracts with the VA) corroborates the stressor event, the Combat Veteran didn’t need to corroborate his [...]

The Joint Chiefs were up on the Hill earlier this week, talking to the Senate Armed Services Committee about the huge problem of rape and sexual assault in the military (the DoD and VA have “niced” this up by inventing the term “Military Sexual Trauma”).

You can watch the full 8 hours of testimony by clicking here.

The Issue.

Women and men in the military face the very strong likelihood that they will be  raped or sexually assaulted while in the military.  In [...]

So the moment has arrived…after years of doing battle with the VA on your disability compensation claim, you got the award letter in the mail.

Here are 8 things to think about after you’ve won your claim.

1) Safeguard Past-Due Benefits.

Many veterans find themselves with a substantial sum of past-due benefits – often ranging from tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars. Many veterans haven’t dealt with large sums of money before, and so they make a couple of mistakes.

First, they tell [...]

The Attig Law Firm is getting ready to revamp its website, as we get ready to expand the Firm’s services and offerings.

I’d  love if you’d take this ANONYMOUS survey to help us understand what works and what doesn’t work on the website.

Thank you!

Here’s the link to the Attig Law Firm Website Survey

For the past week, Turkish citizens have been protesting their government’s increasingly authoritarian actions.  The government’s reaction was unnecessarily violent.  During the protests, the Turkish government jammed social media so the protestors would have difficulty communicating their plight to the outside world.  Protestors turned to Blogs – like this one – to get the word out about the plight of Turkish citizens fighting for their democracy.

Blogs are a powerful tool.  They have the ability to raise awareness of particular issues. [...]

In a previous post, I talked about the only 2 legal processes through which a Veteran can raise a claim for an Earlier Effective Date.

While there are 2 legal processes to pursue an earlier effective date, there are several legal theories that can be used in those processes. Here are 2 of the most common legal theories to argue for an Earlier Effective Date in a VA Disability Compensation Claim.

1.) Reopen your claim, and prove service connection, based on military [...]

Congratulations to our client, a decorated  Vietnam Combat Veteran, who recently was awarded 100% service-connection for a motor neuron disorder that was related to his military service.

The Veteran was a highly decorated helicopter pilot in Vietnam.  He was awarded  3 Distinguished Flying Crosses (DFC),  the Air Medal, Air Medal with ”V” device,  the Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry w/Silver Star, and a BronzeStar).

After returning home and leaving the military service, our client was diagnosed with a Motor Neuron Disorder in 1995.  His condition was, [...]

Effective Dates are a really important part of a Veterans Disability Compensation Claim. They govern how much the Veteran receives in past-due benefits, and they can often be a determining element in other types of benefits the Veteran would want to make, such as survivor benefits and pensions, and state property tax exemptions for disabled Veterans.

Here we go, folks, another “band-aid” for the broken claims process.

We’ve received 2 Ratings Decision last week (May 2013) in which the VA included this new NOD (Notice of Disagreement) Form.  I had heard it was coming – Tom Murphy (one of the VA higher-ups in the VA Compensation and Pension Program) gave a presentation to Veteran’s attorneys back in April in which he mentioned it.

Here it is:    2013 Notice of Disagreement

It’s too early to tell if this form [...]