August 21, 2006 The Honorable Steve Buyer, Chairman Committee on Veterans’ Affairs United States House of Representatives 335 Cannon House Office Building Washington, D.C. 20515-6335 Dear Chairman Buyer: On June 20, 2006, you took time from your busy schedule to meet with the National Commanders of the major veterans service organizations. At that time, you informed the National Commander that you did not support legislation that would allow attorneys to charge fees for representing veterans for filing and pursuing claims. Since that June 20 meeting, the term of Disabled American Veterans (DAV) National Commander Paul Jackson expired. As his successor, I write on behalf the 1.3 million DAV members about this matter of great concern to our nation’s veterans. As you know, on August 3, 2006, the Senate passed S. 2694, which includes provisions that would allow lawyers to charge veterans for advice and assistance in filing and pursuing benefit claims. This legislation suggests that veterans cannot obtain benefits without hiring lawyers to fight the government in much the same way adversaries fight each other in courts through lawsuits. No disabled veteran should have to hire a lawyer to obtain the disability compensation or other benefit a grateful nation has provided. As a condition for receiving disability compensation or other veterans’ or survivor benefits, no disabled veteran or widow should have to surrender part of his or her benefits to a lawyer. If the House of Representatives agrees and this legislation is enacted, it will pit veterans and the Department of Veterans Affairs against each other in the role of adversaries and move closer to a situation in which veterans no longer receive special considerations and assistance in negotiating an informal claims process, but rather will be expected to fight the VA as an opponent to obtain veterans’ benefits. Though the DAV acknowledges that the VA’s claims processing system suffers from problems with quality and timeliness, authorizing attorneys to charge veterans for claims assistance will do nothing to solve those problems. Indeed, the greater likelihood is that involvement of attorneys will make the situation worse. In addition to pushing the system toward one that takes on the characteristics of adversarial litigation and diverting benefits from intended beneficiaries into the pockets of third parties, it will undoubtedly create new administrative burdens for decision makers and require additional employees to monitor fee agreements and process awards of attorney fees. Realizing this, the VA also strongly opposes this pending legislation. I urge you to keep the commitment made to Commander Jackson and vigorously oppose the enactment of any bill or any similar provision that would allow attorneys to charge fees for benefits counseling or assistance in filing and prosecuting claims for veterans’ benefits, when this legislation comes before your Committee. Thank you for your consideration of our views, and I look forward to hearing from you regarding your position on this legislation. Sincerely, BRADLEY S. BARTON National Commander BSB:lmb  Printer-Friendly Version