Selection Of A Lawyer

[rthomass]

I feel compelled to warn all my fellow Veterans to be very selective in who they have represent them before the Department of Veteran Affairs.

I have as some of you know been envolved in an Agent Orange case for over 41 months now, for the bean counters it works out to 14, 600 days or 350,400 hours!

Once the lawyer I selected got my case remanded from the CAVC to the BVA and had me sign a paper in order for her to further represent me. I had precious few contacts with her to the point she seldom took my calls or acknowledged my paperwork. I was basicaly on my own. I developed my own case, did my own research, and pleaded my case without benefit of effective counsel.

I finally dismissed this lawyer and her firm and I am fervently getting another Lawyer up to speed as the local Regional Office refuses to render a final decision and insists on issuing an SSOC and returning the remanded claim back to the BVA for a decision; even though the local RO was given the option by the BVA to render a decision.

I tell you this as my brothers and sisters, we have only our selfs and each other....no one ...not he VA, Not the BVA...or even the CAVC is going to help you. It is your claim, you must be your own advocate, you must be agreesive, ruthless, cunning and even wallow in the gutter with the Veterans Administration.

A lawyer is a resource, a tool......but ultimately as President Truman said "The Buck Stops Here".

That firm I am talking about is Liberman & Mark, PLLC of Washington D.C. I absolutely do not recommend them. I am not trying to slander these lawyers but to warn you there are lawyers out there that are not looking out for your best interest. After the rmmand they have the Veteran sign a 20% agreement to futher represent the Vetrean at The RO level and hope they luck out by sheer number of Veterans Claims they have...for a few to bingo with them exerting as little effort as possible on the claims........a nice racket if I do say so.

Randall

Edited April 3, 2008 by rthomass

[broncovet]

Pete and Allan are both right. The attorney would be "suprised" to try to collect a 30% fee. Then, the attorney would simply do a "workaround" to get his money. Here is an example:

Attorney "Wins" 10,000 Retro and has a fee agreement of 30%. VA says the max is $2000, or 20%. So, attorney crafts a letter to Vet explaining that he has "good news" that the Vets fee will be "reduced" by 10% if (the Vet) simply agrees to pay for some related expenses, such as postage, copies, long distance phone calls, etc. OUTSIDE the court system, that is Directly to the lawyer. (That the VA does not know about) You guessed it. The copies, phone calls and expenses come to $1,000 or more. The Vet is so glad to finally get his retro, that he pays it.

TV ads have done this for years. You get a second item "free" if you just pay seperate shipping and handling. Guess what? They just doubled their sales because the shipping and handling costs more than the item, and they ship it in the same box.

[Pete53]

If the Vet reads Hadit he can tell the work around attorney to get stuffed.