Hill & Ponton is a VA disability law firm exclusively dedicated to helping denied and underrated veterans get the disability benefits they earned. Our focus is on VA disability appeals: denied claims, low ratings, complex presumptive and toxic exposure cases.
And because our work is built around that expertise rather than a physical office, distance is no obstacle. Our VA-accredited lawyers represent veterans across Alaska by phone and email, and someone in Bethel, Nome or Ketchikan gets the same attorney as a veteran living next door to the regional office in Anchorage.
Wherever you are in Alaska, Hill & Ponton brings over 30 years of VA disability experience straight to you. Contact us for a free evaluation: we charge nothing until your appeal prevails.
Our Legal Services for Alaska Veterans
- Disability Compensation: We go after the full monthly payment a service-connected condition can support, together with the back pay owed back to the date the claim should first have been approved.
- Appeals: If the VA turns a claim down or sets the rating too low, we carry the appeal to its end and hold the agency to the decision it should have made.
- Rating Increases: Once a condition grows worse than the VA’s most recent rating reflects, we record the decline and push the VA toward the steeper percentage, and the bigger check, it now justifies.
- Survivor Benefits: When a service-connected condition ends a veteran’s life, the spouse, children, or parents left behind may have a claim to DIC and related survivor support, and we steer families through each step.
- Special Monthly Compensation: Catastrophic injuries, an amputation or blindness can carry compensation beyond the standard 100% disability benefits.
- Total Disability Based on Individual Unemployability: Where service-connected conditions rule out steady work, TDIU pays at the full 100% rate even where the combined percentage comes in lower. We put together the clinical and work-history proof the claim calls for.
What Compensation and Benefits Are Available to You?
Everything you receive in compensation and care rests on your VA disability rating. The agency assigns it to capture how far a service-connected condition cuts into ordinary daily activity and the capacity to earn a living.
The scale climbs from 10% to 100% in steps of ten, and a higher rating brings a larger tax-free check each month. Stack more than one condition and the VA runs them through a combined-rating calculation that usually finishes below what people expect, so precision is essential; even a slight rating increase can move the monthly figure upward.
The figures below show what the VA currently pays an Alaska veteran with no dependents each month:
- 10%: $180.42
- 20%: $356.66
- 30%: $552.47
- 40%: $795.84
- 50%: $1,132.90
- 60%: $1,435.02
- 70%: $1,808.45
- 80%: $2,102.15
- 90%: $2,362.30
- 100%: $3,938.58
Those amounts climb each year with cost-of-living adjustments, and a household that includes a spouse, children, or dependent parents draws still more.
On top of federal compensation, Alaska offers its own benefits for disabled veterans. Those range from property tax relief to discounted hunting and fishing licenses and a preference for state hiring.
When your rating understates the real burden of your condition, Hill & Ponton can fight for an increase so each benefit linked to it stays available to you.
Work with us to get your benefits
When Should You Hire a VA Disability Lawyer?
Some Alaska veterans take on the initial claim themselves, and frequently that works out. It is the denial, or a rating that lands far beneath the severity of the condition, where bringing in a professional changes the result. The appeal path is governed by hard deadlines and rules in constant flux, and a single overlooked form can cost you months of waiting.
A VA-accredited attorney brings someone fluent in the process onto your side. Hill & Ponton handles nothing but VA disability matters; we zero in on denied and underrated claims, collect the records, line up medical opinions, and demonstrate how the disability reshapes a veteran’s daily life and means of support.
Your VA Appeal Options
- Supplemental Claim: Put forward new and relevant proof, a recent diagnosis or files the VA passed over, and request a fresh ruling.
- Higher-Level Review: Have a senior adjudicator re-examine the record when you think the VA erred, with nothing new added.
- Board of Veterans’ Appeals: The last stage, where you can choose direct review, an evidence-submission lane, or a hearing in front of a Veterans Law Judge.
Where the VA refuses to see how severe your condition truly is, we are ready to act. The evaluation costs nothing and carries no upfront fee, with payment owed to us only when we prevail. Tell us your story and we carry it forward from there.
Winning Your VA Disability Appeal
A great many disability claims collapse because the right evidence never reached the VA, or because no one linked the condition back to service. Each claim rests on three things: diagnosis, in-service event, and the link between the two.
- Current diagnosis: a qualified clinician documents in writing that the condition is present now.
- In-service event: your service file reflects an injury, illness, event, or exposure that could plausibly have caused or aggravated it.
- Nexus: a qualified expert links the first two, calling it “at least as likely as not” tied to service.
Even a strong case can fall apart when one piece is thin. Alaska claims often stumble over:
- No firm medical tie between the diagnosis and military service
- Medical records that are sparse or out of date
- Appeal or evidence deadlines that slipped past
- VA misreadings of the service file or treatment history
Hill & Ponton teams up with respected medical experts for convincing nexus opinions and submit each appeal whole, precise, and ahead of deadline.
Get a free case evaluation
VA Disability for Toxic Exposure
Alaska’s military presence is long and dense, and a number of its installations carry well-documented pollution. A veteran who served at one of these sites and later developed a related illness may hold a compensable claim.
- Elmendorf Air Force Base and Fort Richardson (Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Anchorage): Two EPA Superfund sites holding solvents, fuels, and PFOS and PFOA from firefighting foam; Fort Richardson also left white phosphorus in the Eagle River Flats.
- Fort Wainwright (Fairbanks): An EPA Superfund site with fuels, solvents, and PFAS in its soil and groundwater.
- Eielson Air Force Base (near North Pole): Firefighting-foam PFAS that leaked beyond the base boundary into private wells near Moose Creek, together with TCE and fuel pollution.
- Adak Naval Air Station (Aleutian Islands): A closed EPA Superfund installation contaminated with solvents, fuels, PCBs, and unexploded ordnance.
- Amchitka Island (Aleutian Islands): Site of three underground nuclear tests, where workers and personnel exposed to radiation may be eligible for compensation.
Exposure that occurred somewhere else can ground a claim just as well. Hill & Ponton lawyers have successfully handled many cases involving Agent Orange, the burn-pit smoke now addressed by the PACT Act, jet fuel, and other toxins.
Legal Resources and Lawyers Near You
Alaska has more veterans per capita than any state, yet many live in remote boroughs and off-the-road villages reachable only by small plane, boat, or seasonal ice, sometimes hundreds of road-less miles from the nearest VA office. Hill & Ponton removes that barrier. We represent veterans and their families entirely by phone and email, handling the full VA disability appeal without our clients ever leaving home.
Anchorage
Anchorage VA Regional Benefit Office: 1201 North Muldoon Street, Anchorage, AK 99504.
Fairbanks
Fairbanks VA Clinic: 2555 Phillips Field Road, Fairbanks, AK 99709. Phone: 907-328-1750
Alaska VA Facilities Serving Veterans
Veterans Service Offices
- Anchorage VA Regional Benefit Office: 1201 North Muldoon Street, Anchorage, AK 99504. National benefits line: 800-827-1000
- Alaska Office of Veterans Affairs: 4600 DeBarr Road, Suite 180, Anchorage, AK 99508. Phone: 907-334-0874
VA Medical Centers and Clinics
- Alaska VA Healthcare System, Colonel Mary Louise Rasmuson Campus: 1201 North Muldoon Road, Anchorage, AK 99504. Phone: 907-257-5490
- JBER VA Medical Center: 5955 Zeamer Avenue, Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, AK 99506. Phone: 888-353-7574
- Fairbanks VA Clinic: 2555 Phillips Field Road, Fairbanks, AK 99709. Phone: 907-328-1750
- Mat-Su VA Clinic: 865 North Seward Meridian Parkway, Suite 105, Wasilla, AK 99654. Phone: 907-631-3100
- Soldotna VA Clinic: 237 West Rockwell Avenue, Soldotna, AK 99669. Phone: 888-353-7574
- Juneau VA Clinic: 709 West 9th Street, Suite 150, Juneau, AK 99801. Phone: 907-796-4300
Vet Centers
- Anchorage Vet Center: 4400 Business Park Boulevard, Suite B-34, Anchorage, AK 99503. Phone: 907-563-6966
- Fairbanks Vet Center: 751 Old Richardson Highway, Fairbanks, AK 99701. Phone: 907-456-4238
- Wasilla Vet Center: 1751 East Gardner Way, Wasilla, AK 99654. Phone: 907-376-4318
Housing Assistance and Support for Alaska Veterans
Homelessness still finds Alaska’s veterans, and the cold here makes it life-threatening. Operated out of the Alaska VA Healthcare System’s Anchorage campus and the clinics it runs around the state, the VA’s services for homeless veterans link them to HUD-VASH vouchers, Health Care for Homeless Veterans, and Grant and Per Diem transitional beds.
The 2025 Point-in-Time count counted 106 homeless veterans on one January night. But many more risk housing insecurity and unemployment due to their disabilities. Beneath a family’s housing emergency often lies a wrongly denied or stalled disability payment.
At Hill & Ponton we move veterans on the brink of losing their housing to the front of the line, and we bill nothing unless the appeal succeeds. Reach out for a free evaluation at your appeal and we’ll point you in the right direction even if we don’t take your case.
Meet Our Expert Legal Team
VA Disability Attorneys and professionals championing veterans throughout Alaska and nationwide.
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