Did the VA turn down your disability claim, or give a service-connected condition a rating far lower than its toll on your daily life? A decision like that can make years of treatment and missed work seem as if they never registered with the agency. You have the right to challenge it, and you do not have to face that process by yourself.
Since 1986, veterans and surviving family members have turned to Hill & Ponton’s VA-accredited attorneys after a denial or a rating that fell short. Our law firm is entirely dedicated to the practice of disability law and we win 96% of the cases we take.
Under Connecticut’s Public Act 18-47, even veterans who received an other-than-honorable discharge can qualify for certain state veterans’ benefits if they experienced PTSD, military sexual trauma, or a traumatic brain injury. Whether your claim involves one of these conditions or any other service-connected disability, if the VA denied it or rated it lower than your symptoms support, our attorneys can review the decision and help you appeal it.
Our Legal Services for Connecticut Veterans
- Disability Compensation: We check that all of your service-connected conditions are recognized and rated at their full severity, and that your retroactive compensation starts from the correct effective date.
- VA Disability Appeals: We read your decision letter against your full claims file, identify the legal and factual mistakes, and choose the appeal route that fits your case.
- Rating Increases: If your condition has gotten worse, or the VA underrated it from the start, we gather current medical evidence and push for the higher rating you qualify for today.
- Special Monthly Compensation: Losing the use of a limb, blindness, or needing another person’s help with daily care can qualify you for Special Monthly Compensation, which can pay more than the standard rating schedule allows.
- Individual Unemployability: If your service-connected conditions keep you from holding steady work, TDIU can bring your monthly payment up to the 100% level while your combined rating stays under it. We build the medical and work-history evidence that claim needs.
- DIC and Survivor Benefits: If a veteran in your family died from a service-connected condition, and you’re the surviving spouse, child, or parent, we help you pursue Dependency and Indemnity Compensation and the other survivor benefits you may qualify for.
What Compensation and Benefits Are Available to You?
Your rating is the VA’s percentage measure of what a service-connected condition takes from your health and your ability to function, and it determines the monthly compensation you receive. Ratings range from 0% to 100% in steps of 10.
When the VA rates several service-connected conditions, it merges them through a combined-ratings formula that lands lower than simple addition. Put your own numbers in our VA disability calculator to see what your disabilities are worth.
The current payment table for a single veteran with no dependents is:
- 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
A spouse, children, or dependent parents can raise your payment at certain rating levels, and the VA adjusts every rate each year for the cost of living. As a Connecticut veteran, you may also qualify for separate state benefits for disabled veterans, including tax breaks, housing assistance, educational programs, and more.
Work with us to get your benefits
When Should You Hire a VA Disability Lawyer?
The best time to bring in a lawyer is usually right after a decision goes against you, while you still have time to request a review. The next best time is now. An attorney can identify appealable errors, protect the filing deadline, and choose the appeal path that fits the problem.
Your VA Appeal Options
- Supplemental Claim: Pick this when fresh evidence, like a new medical opinion or records the VA never reviewed, answers the reason for the denial.
- Higher-Level Review: A more senior reviewer takes a new look at the same record. You can’t add evidence, so this route fits best when the VA misread or misapplied what it already had.
- Board of Veterans’ Appeals: Your case goes before a Veterans Law Judge. You can choose a direct review, a review with added evidence, or a hearing, and our appeals timeline guide explains what to expect from each route.
What Evidence Can Win a VA Disability Appeal?
Every service-connection appeal rests on three elements, and the VA can deny your claim when any one of them is thin:
- A current disability: Medical records that name the physical or mental health condition you’re living with now.
- An in-service event, injury, illness, or exposure: Service records, treatment notes, personnel files, or credible statements that show what happened while you served.
- A nexus: A qualified medical opinion explaining why the condition you have today is at least as likely as not connected to that event.
Each element answers a different question: what you have now, what happened in service, and how the two connect.
Your records may be spread across the West Haven VA Medical Center, a clinic in Waterbury or New London, and a private doctor. When something is missing, we track it down or arrange an independent medical opinion that fills the hole in your file.
Get a free case evaluation
Toxic Exposure Claims
EPA and Army records document contamination at several Connecticut military sites, and those records can help tie a diagnosis to your service. The PACT Act expanded VA health care and benefits for veterans exposed to burn pits, Agent Orange, and other toxic substances, and the VA notes that exposure during training or active-duty service can also make you eligible.
- New London Submarine Base: Contamination is documented at three landfills, the chemical storage sites, and the tank farms. Landfill wastes included PCBs, pesticides, spent battery acids, and volatile organic compounds, and lead and cadmium turned up in sediments and surface water. EPA classifies PCBs as probable human carcinogens, and ATSDR links long-term cadmium exposure to kidney disease, lung damage, and fragile bones. If your duties took you to the landfills, storage sites, or tank farms, you worked closest to those sources.
- Stone’s Ranch Military Reservation: The EPA profile lists this Army National Guard training site in East Lyme as a federal facility on the federal hazardous-waste compliance docket, which gives your appeal a documented starting point for tracing your training there.
- Former Stratford Army Engine Plant: Aircraft and engine production at the plant relied on metal working, plating, finishing, and cleaning processes that generated wastes including oil, fuel, solvents, and paint. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers names metals and volatile organic compounds in the soil and groundwater as the main contaminants of concern.
If the VA already denied your toxic exposure claim, you can still appeal it. Official environmental findings and records of where and when you served can show the VA what its first review missed.
VA Lawyers and Legal Resources Near You
Hartford
Hartford VA Regional Benefit Office at Newington VA Clinic: Building 2E, 4th Floor, 555 Willard Avenue, Newington, CT 06111.
Bridgeport
City of Bridgeport Veterans Affairs: 20 Thorme Street, Bridgeport, CT. Phone: 203-576-8348.
VA Facilities and Veterans Services in Connecticut
Benefits and Services Offices
- Office of Advocacy and Assistance: Through this state office, accredited Veteran Service Officers can help you and your family pursue federal, state, and local programs, including disability compensation and survivor benefits.
- Connecticut Veterans Affairs: State programs include advocacy and assistance, skilled nursing care, residential rehabilitation and recovery.
VA Medical Center and Clinics
- West Haven VA Medical Center: 950 Campbell Avenue, West Haven, CT 06516.
- Newington VA Clinic: 555 Willard Avenue, Newington, CT 06111.
- John J. McGuirk Department of Veterans Affairs Outpatient Clinic: 6 Shaw’s Cove, Suite 104, New London, CT 06320.
- Orange VA Clinic: 200 Edison Road, Orange, CT 06477.
- Stamford VA Clinic: 1275 Summer Street, Suite 102, Stamford, CT 06905.
- Danbury VA Clinic: 7 Germantown Road, Suite 2B, Danbury, CT 06810.
- Waterbury VA Clinic: 95 Scovill Street, Waterbury, CT 06706.
- Willimantic VA Clinic: 1320 Main Street, Suite 27A, Willimantic, CT 06226.
- Winsted VA Clinic: 115 Spencer Street, Winsted, CT 06098.
Vet Centers
- Hartford Vet Center: Free, confidential counseling in a non-medical setting, including support related to depression, PTSD, and military sexual trauma. 25 Elm Street, Suite A, Rocky Hill, CT 06067.
- New Haven Vet Center: Confidential counseling at no cost, plus referrals, open to veterans, service members, and their families. 291 South Lambert Road, Orange, CT 06477.
- Norwich Vet Center: Individual and group counseling, readjustment support, and referrals. 2 Cliff Street, Norwich, CT 06360.
- Danbury Vet Center: Counseling for PTSD, depression, grief, trauma, and military sexual trauma, plus benefit and community referrals. 131 West Street, Suite 2A, Danbury, CT 06810.
Housing Support for Homeless and At-Risk Connecticut Veterans
If you’re homeless or at risk of losing your home, VA Connecticut’s homeless veteran program can help with temporary and permanent housing, financial support to prevent homelessness, job training, treatment for addiction or depression, and medical or dental care. You’ll work with a homeless services care coordinator who can match you with the program that fits your situation.
HUD’s 2025 Point-in-Time count for Connecticut officially recorded 177 homeless veterans statewide. Many more could be living in insecure situations. When the VA turns down or underrates your claim, it can hold back compensation you need during a housing crisis. Hill & Ponton gives priority to appeals from veterans without stable housing or at risk of losing it, and there’s no attorney fee unless your claim succeeds.
Meet Our Expert Legal Team
A nationwide team of VA disability attorneys and case professionals serving veterans throughout Connecticut.
Let Us Fight For Your Benefits
Need help appealing a VA decision? Contact our disability lawyers for a free evaluation of your claim.