Do Attorneys Speed Up Claims Process?

[hurryupnwait]

This is from a post made on another forum. I have an attorney and it seems that my claim with him is following this pattern.

"To get back to the original question as to whether getting an attorney will speed up the claims process, I will say that in most cases, yes it does. Let me explain.

Current laws and regulations prohibit an attorney from charging more than a very nominal fee unless the claim for benefits is in appellate status. What this means is that if your claim is granted on the first go round your lawyer has essentially represented you for free. Let's just say that lawyers don't like to represent you for free.

So what many, if not most, lawyers do is to try to get the matter under appeal. They want the Regional Office to render a decision as quickly as possible so they do everything they can to encourage a quick decision even if all of the evidence is not of record. They don't want your claim granted at this point, they want it denied so they will have something to disagree with which let's them go "on the clock" as they say. Now they can start running a tab on you. That's why many lawyers start trying to waive all of your rights from the beginning in an effort to coax a quick decision out of VA. This is what I meant when I said that a lawyer will often speed up the claims process, but it isn't a speeding up that is to your advantage.

It's after the lawyer get's a Notice of Disagreement filed that they start dragging out the process. At this point they are essentially running up their bill. They tend to do very little actual work but they do send a litany of form letters to VA appearing to be claiming just about every benefit VA has to offer in all manner of legalese language. Not because they actually think you are entitled to any of this (heck, most don't have any idea one way or the other), but they hope to so bamboozle the non-legal claims processors at VA to the point that somewhere along the way they won't dot an i or cross a t or otherwise commit some due process error. At this point they will more often than not again waive your rights and demand that your claim be sent to BVA without any further action at the Regional Office.

So why do they do this? Two reasons.

First, should BVA actually grant your appeal they will get a cut out of your backpay. By this time there is usually a nice little bit of retroactive pay built up. Unfortunately in more cases than not your claim would have been granted anyway even without the lawyer, but this way the lawyer gets to share in your good fortune.

Second, even if your claim is not granted, if the lawyer has managed to accomplish his earlier goal of getting the Regional Office to miss something or otherwise make some mistake that results in BVA remanding the appeal to correct this mistake, the lawyer can collect a fee directly from the government under the Equal Access to Justice Act. This means that he collects whether you ever do or not. Unfortunately many of these remands by BVA are for shortcomings that were manipulated into happening by the actions of the lawyer.

In conclusion, until you have exhausted the claims process within VA itself and are ready to appeal a BVA decision to the Court of Appeals for Veterans Claim, you should stay away from lawyers. A much better bet is to find a good VSO who knows the VA claims process and who isn't trying to earn a fee off of you, and let that person help you "

Any comments?

Paul

Edited March 29, 2009 by hurryupnwait

[tagandbag]

Its absurd for anyone to think a lawer does this, if the atty. is reputable. You can fire the attorney if this was the case and what attorney would even bother to take a claims case with the VA and give you bad representation. I would like to see a documented case as to this claim of impropriety on attorneys with va claims. I am using an attorney for my claims case now and I do not feel stupid for doing so and find it offensive for members on hadit to be demeaning if someone uses an attorney. Sometimes things are not cut and dry or black and white with the va and attorneys can be a very useful tool in the mix. So what if they get 20% if they do a good job and you can tell if they do. I have used attorneys for situations and it was money well spent.

T&B

[peacecindia]

oops edited a message that was here, but now it's gone.

Its absurd for anyone to think a lawer does this, if the atty. is reputable. You can fire the attorney if this was the case and what attorney would even bother to take a claims case with the VA and give you bad representation. I would like to see a documented case as to this claim of impropriety on attorneys with va claims. I am using an attorney for my claims case now and I do not feel stupid for doing so and find it offensive for members on hadit to be demeaning if someone uses an attorney. Sometimes things are not cut and dry or black and white with the va and attorneys can be a very useful tool in the mix. So what if they get 20% if they do a good job and you can tell if they do. I have used attorneys for situations and it was money well spent.

T&B

Edited April 18, 2009 by peacecindia

[peacecindia]

Tagandbag,

Well OK thanks for letting me know that your post was general

and my post to you was a reaction. Sorry for bumping into you.

Cindy

Uhmm peaceindia I not sure where your coming from???? I did not say anything about what you posted, nor mentioned you. I merely stating that lawyers are useful and its not ridiculous to use one. And I for one don't think attorney are unscrupulous as the first post in this thread suggested. I think if you go back over the thread you will see what I am talking about. I am not one to sit around and think that every one who gives you something or is trying to help is trying screw you. It would be pretty lonely if that was the case. The sky is falling......

T&B

[tagandbag]

Thats okay I didn,t feel a thing.

[john999]

I am using a lawyer for my CUE claim. No question that my CUE will mean big money for the lawyer and for me. I wanted a very objective opinion about the chances of my winning the claim. I figure if the lawyer is going to spend time and money on my claim he must feel he has a good shot at winning it for me. If I win then he wins. That does not happen if you use a VSO. If you can win a claim before you have to file a NOD then there is no point in getting a lawyer except in regards to the VA's habit of lowballing VA claimants.

[hurryupnwait]

This is from a post made on another forum. I have an attorney and it seems that my claim with him is following this pattern.

"To get back to the original question as to whether getting an attorney will speed up the claims process, I will say that in most cases, yes it does. Let me explain.

Current laws and regulations prohibit an attorney from charging more than a very nominal fee unless the claim for benefits is in appellate status. What this means is that if your claim is granted on the first go round your lawyer has essentially represented you for free. Let's just say that lawyers don't like to represent you for free.

So what many, if not most, lawyers do is to try to get the matter under appeal. They want the Regional Office to render a decision as quickly as possible so they do everything they can to encourage a quick decision even if all of the evidence is not of record. They don't want your claim granted at this point, they want it denied so they will have something to disagree with which let's them go "on the clock" as they say. Now they can start running a tab on you. That's why many lawyers start trying to waive all of your rights from the beginning in an effort to coax a quick decision out of VA. This is what I meant when I said that a lawyer will often speed up the claims process, but it isn't a speeding up that is to your advantage.

It's after the lawyer get's a Notice of Disagreement filed that they start dragging out the process. At this point they are essentially running up their bill. They tend to do very little actual work but they do send a litany of form letters to VA appearing to be claiming just about every benefit VA has to offer in all manner of legalese language. Not because they actually think you are entitled to any of this (heck, most don't have any idea one way or the other), but they hope to so bamboozle the non-legal claims processors at VA to the point that somewhere along the way they won't dot an i or cross a t or otherwise commit some due process error. At this point they will more often than not again waive your rights and demand that your claim be sent to BVA without any further action at the Regional Office.

So why do they do this? Two reasons.

First, should BVA actually grant your appeal they will get a cut out of your backpay. By this time there is usually a nice little bit of retroactive pay built up. Unfortunately in more cases than not your claim would have been granted anyway even without the lawyer, but this way the lawyer gets to share in your good fortune.

Second, even if your claim is not granted, if the lawyer has managed to accomplish his earlier goal of getting the Regional Office to miss something or otherwise make some mistake that results in BVA remanding the appeal to correct this mistake, the lawyer can collect a fee directly from the government under the Equal Access to Justice Act. This means that he collects whether you ever do or not. Unfortunately many of these remands by BVA are for shortcomings that were manipulated into happening by the actions of the lawyer.

In conclusion, until you have exhausted the claims process within VA itself and are ready to appeal a BVA decision to the Court of Appeals for Veterans Claim, you should stay away from lawyers. A much better bet is to find a good VSO who knows the VA claims process and who isn't trying to earn a fee off of you, and let that person help you "

Any comments?

Paul

T and B

This post was made by a moderator on another veterans forum. He is a strong advocate for using vso's instead of attorneys.

Paul

Edited April 19, 2009 by hurryupnwait