VA Disability Lawyers Proudly Serving Iowa Veterans

Our Legal Services for Iowa Veterans

• Disability Compensation: We make sure each of your service-connected conditions is recognized and rated for its full effect on your life, and that your back pay reaches back to the right effective date.
• VA Disability Appeals: A denied or underrated claim can be appealed, and we handle the whole process for you, from the first review request through a hearing before the Board of Veterans’ Appeals if your case needs one.
• Rating Increases: Conditions change over time. When yours gets worse, we gather current treatment records and medical opinions and request the higher rating your symptoms now support.
• Special Monthly Compensation: If you’ve lost the use of a limb, lost your sight, or need another person’s help with daily care, we pursue the Special Monthly Compensation the regular rating schedule doesn’t cover.
• Individual Unemployability: Can’t keep a steady job because of your service-connected disabilities? We build the medical and employment evidence for TDIU, which pays at the 100% rate.
• DIC and Survivor Benefits: We represent surviving spouses, children, and parents in Dependency and Indemnity Compensation claims tied to a veteran’s death from a condition connected to service.

When Should You Hire a VA Disability Lawyer?

Once a decision comes back against you, you have a limited window to request a review, and the option you choose determines whether the VA will look at new evidence. An attorney can step in at that point and:

• Request your complete claims file so you can see everything the VA relied on
• Identify the exact reason the VA gave for the denial or low rating
• Line up the medical opinions and records that answer that reason
• Choose between a Supplemental Claim, a Higher-Level Review, or a Board appeal and file it before the deadline
• Handle the letters and exam notices from the VA so you can focus on your health

Toxic Exposure Claims

Under the PACT Act, the VA widened its health care and benefits to reach veterans who breathed burn pit smoke, handled Agent Orange, or met other toxic substances, and the VA also counts exposures from training or active duty. These Iowa installations have documented contamination:

• Iowa Army Ammunition Plant: The plant’s primary contaminants are RDX explosives, metals, volatile organic compounds, and depleted uranium, with RDX in on-post soil, surface water, and groundwater and in groundwater beyond the post. PFAS has also turned up in groundwater at the former fire station and firefighting training areas. High doses of RDX can trigger seizures by affecting the nervous system. If you worked at the firing sites, cleaned parts and equipment with solvents, or trained on the firefighting grounds, you were closest to those sources.
• Camp Dodge: At the Johnston Training Site, the Pentagon’s PFAS cleanup tracker lists the initial assessment as finished and a remedial investigation as the planned next phase. Under DoD’s testing program, that next step follows when results exceed EPA screening levels.
• Des Moines Air National Guard Base: DoD has moved past initial PFAS testing to a remedial investigation, which it projects will last until September 2058. For people with heavy exposure to PFOA and PFOS, ATSDR points to a possible higher risk of kidney or testicular cancer.
• Sioux City Air National Guard Base: The same DoD chart shows a PFAS remedial investigation under way at the Sioux Gateway Airport base, estimated to continue until September 2060.

Exposure at these installations may have happened decades ago, and illnesses like cancer can take years to surface, which makes the connection hard to prove on your own. A VA denial on an exposure claim can still be challenged. Our lawyers can build the exposure record your claim needs and push for the compensation you’ve earned.