Does it cost me anything to hire your firm?

Yes and no. It depends on whether you hire us for an appeal to the Veterans Court, or an appeal of VA Ratings Decision,.

Fees for Appeals to the US Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims (CAVC)

If the veteran or survivor is unable to prove a financial hardship, they will have to pay a $50 filing fee at the CAVC.

The veteran or survivor will not, however, have to pay attorney fees. If an attorney at Attig | Curran | Steel substantially prevails in an appeal to the CAVC, the firm petitions the Court for attorney fees under the Equal Access to Justice Act (EAJA). We ask the Court to order the VA to pay our attorney fees — not out of your client’s past due benefits, but out of the VA’s own operating budget.

We do not charge veterans, survivors, or their administrative attorneys contingency fees for representation at the CAVC.

If we lose your appeal to the CAVC, Federal Circuit Court of Appeals, or the United States Supreme Court, we do not charge you or your client attorney fees.

Fees for Appeals of VA Rating Decisions.

If the VA denies your claim for VA disability compensation, we typically charge a contingency fee. That means that you do not pay us unless we win past-due benefits for you. 

The fee varies between 20% to 30% of past-due benefits, based on a number of factors such as the complexity of the case, the amount of work needed to be done, the risk of loss in your appeal, how long we expect the appeal to take, etc.  

Attig | Curran | Steel typically advances the costs in a case for expert opinions, etc. If we recover past-due benefits for you, you will have to pay us back out of your portion of the past-due benefits.