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]

Uhm, sorry Pete. I'm not trying to get in a scrap with a moderator from a different forum. My thoughts are that this is not good advice from a moderator from a different forum to be posted on hadit, to abandon the option of using an attorney. In other words a vet could get the short end of the stick. All options should be open when dealing with VA, as we all know it not an easy road to navigate. This thread was started on hadit, so I thought that it was acceptable to post my opinion, if I thought it was bad advice for a vet.

T&B

[purple]

No.

[vaf]

My thoughts on this subject, since we have stuff still pending at the VARO, the Board, and the Court, parts we're handling pro se (because of NOD's filed prior to June 21, 2007), and parts with attorney representation (our third -- Clark Evans passed away, we fired the second attorney, and now have what we consider very capable and enthusiastic representation, for which we will gladly pay if we prevail)...

1) Attorneys who are mostly money driven, in my opinion, don't get involved in veterans law issues. They'll go for the bread and butter issues like bankruptcy, divorce, social security claims, probate, that kind of thing. I do believe that most of the attorneys who choose to practice veterans disability law are answering a special calling, on one level or another.

2) Granted, there are some that go for the easy money at the Court level, that being EAJA funds. That's a sure-fired way they know they'll be compensated for their time and energy. If they prevail at that level on behalf of the veteran, then more power to them and its their time well-invested that wreaped dividends for the veteran.

3) Many veterans do not have the physical and/or mental energy to become kitchen-table attorneys by studying the laws and statutes themselves because their VSO's are either incapable or unwilling to represent the vet's best interests. The vets just can't get themselves there, and unfortunately, VSO's who do more damage than good don't wear signs around their necks to advertise the fact, so the next best move is to hire capable representation.

4) Having filed what I consider to be a successful Writ of Mandamus request(although denied as moot, it forced the AMC to make a decision and get an eight year old remanded claim moving again), I can re-affirm what's already been said here -- the VA has a literal Army of attorneys on its side, and we heard from quite a few of them while the request was pending. The most gratifying thing I learned from that experience was that even with highly-educated professional "advice," the VA's line of BS was so thin that even the Court Judge admonished them before giving them a deadline to come up with a decision or risk the consequence of his granting the writ.

As Berta always stresses, it's evidence that will eventually decide how a claim goes. It's been our personal experience that attorney representation has helped us wave the "BS Flag" when the VA ignores the existence of evidence that favors the vet's claim, misinterprets the rating criteria as it relates to a vet's disability (or vice versa), and otherwise skews the situation to its own advantage. I've tried to assist the attorney regarding close scrutiny of my husband's service and VAMC medical records, because I'm making this investment in the success of my husband's claim, since my husband is unable to do this himself. However, I believe that a disabled veteran is better off with capable (and I stress that word) legal representation that is worth every penny of compensation paid to protect the veteran's best interests.

[Pete53]

I want all to know on Hadit that if I am off base with advice I beg you to correct me. I am nothing more than a Veteran who survived over 5 years of hell with VA and little to no support during the time.

Over the years I have seen a lot of water go under the bridge and I am pretty good at knowing the things that help and don't work.

I have been corrected before and I appreciate the Members who have done it cause in my mind the worse thing that can happen is for a Veteran to take a wrong turn cause of advice I may have given.

Part of Hadit's best is Members are willing to help out and also not afraid to share an opinion. I think in the end it gives a Veteran a ball field to make choices and keep in mind the final responsibility still falls on the Veteran to take action cause depending on the VA to do the right thing is like wearing a raincoat to ford a river.

[Capt.]

Hello Pete,VAF,Tag. Pete you have almost always given me good advice and helped me early on with my claims. You are one of the people who always try and help, and have gone thru the crazy system we know as the VA. I know you have suffered thru it too. VAF ,,,,EXCELLANT POST..... and you are really showing persaverance for your husband and you. You have fought a long battle but looks like the 9th inning and your relief pitcher is coming to the mound with your big bats coming up in the lineup. Your advice is an encouragement to many here and your experience of having gone thru this stage of the game is very helpful to me. TAG,,,,right from the start of the thread , just a you did, I had the red flags come up with this other "moderator" from another board. There are plenty of veterans here at Hadit that have tried it "his" way and wish they had not. Me being one of them. Nothing for you to apoligize about nor Pete. I am sure most of the Hadit family has been down "his" road with few of them getting the results they were after. God Bless. NEVER GIVE UP. C.C.

[tagandbag]

If I may use an old cliche, Right on brothers.

T&B