Effective January 16, 2014, VA has amended 38 C.F.R. § 3.310 to add five illnesses found to secondarily related to traumatic brain injuries. A report by the National Academy of Sciences Institute of Medicine, entitled “Gulf War and Health, Volume 7: Long-Term Consequences of Traumatic Brain Injury,” found sufficient evidence to link the moderate to […]
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As many veterans are aware, there are a special set of regulations that provide for “presumptive service connection” for certain conditions if a veteran was exposed to Agent Orange. This list is important because if a veteran does develop one of the listed condition, even 40 or 50 years after service, and they served on […]
In an attempt to combat the backlog, the VA has recently proposed several changes to the claims process. While the VA’s goal is to decrease the amount of time it takes to process a claim, many view the proposed change as potentially harmful to Veterans. Currently, to file a claim the Veteran need only send […]
Veteran’s Benefit Group practice attorney, David E. Boelzner, served as a panelist for the first Veteran’s Law Symposium, “Serving Those Who Serviced,” at the University of Richmond School of Law on November 8, 2013. He will also contribute an article to an issue of the Law School’s Journal of Law and the Public Interest dedicated to […]
October 25, 2013 — The American Legion’s Department of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands invited attorneys Nancy Foti and Krystle Waldron of Goodman Allen Donnelly’s Veterans Benefit Group to attend a conference and speak to Post Commanders and Officers about the needs of veterans in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands and the […]
Starting Monday, the 11th, we begin celebrating Veteran’s Week—a time to recognize, honor and thank our country’s veterans. At Goodman Allen Donnelly, we want to take care of our veterans. Through the Veteran’s Benefit Group, a service of Goodman Allen Donnelly, we offer legal help and aid that gives veterans the benefits they have earned. Join […]
Program Description Understand the Procedures and Strategies for Effective Disability Claimant Representation Get everything you’ll need to succeed in a disability claim with an insightful overview of the laws, definitions, procedures, and tactics involved in researching and proving impairments. Experienced attorney faculty will walk you through the major steps of the claim procedure and share […]
Over the past several years, there has been considerable attention in the media to the past contamination of the water supply at Camp Lejeune. From 1953 to 1987, the water supply was contaminated with TCE, PCE, benzene, vinyl chloride and “other compounds.” For background information on the problem, see https://clnr.hqi.usmc.mil/clwater/Site/background_information.html Based on legislation passed in […]
A recent Washington Post article shows signs of progress in VA’s efforts to reduce the more than 800,000 claim backlog. Director Thomas Murphy reports that “the number of pending cases has decreased by 74,000 over the past 45 days.” VA has pledged to complete all cases that have been pending for more than 125 days […]
In a previous blog posting, we explained why a “win” at the Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims (CAVC) most often does not result in immediate award of benefits by the VA, but instead in a remand, i.e. the case being sent back to VA to be redone, sometimes with further development. Clients sometimes wonder […]
