The Founding of the United States Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims
The United States Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims was established in 1988 to provide legal recourse to injured vets whose claims for benefits had been denied by the Veterans Administration’s (VA) appeals board. Up until the time the court was established, injured veterans had no recourse beyond the VA appeals board. Even if a claim took years of agonizing hard work to go through the appeals process, once it was denied by the VA appeals board, nothing more could be done. However, after the Vietnam War, there was a huge influx of new veterans seeking benefits, and the sheer volume of them brought a national spotlight onto the deficiencies within the process. This national spotlight lead to the establishment of the United States Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims.
Even though the establishment of the United States Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims was a huge improvement over the former system, it still had one major flaw. That flaw was that those who were seeking benefits were barred from hiring disability lawyers to represent them during any phase of the process, until a claim ended up before the United States Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims. New legislation has recently changed this, and now those who need help are able to hire lawyers at the very beginning of the clams process.
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