You can be sick from your service and still receive a VA denial, or a rating that falls short of your symptoms and leaves you paying for your service in lost work and treatment. If that has happened to you, you need to challenge the decision, and you can have someone in your corner when you do it.
Since 1986, Hill & Ponton’s VA-accredited attorneys have stood with veterans and surviving families after the VA said no or rated a condition too low. Disability law is the only law we practice, we win 96% of the cases we take on, and you pay no attorney fee unless your appeal succeeds. Request a free case evaluation today to explore your options.
Our Legal Services for Maine Veterans
- Disability Compensation: We make sure every condition tied to your service appears on your rating decision, rated for what it actually does to you, and that your back pay reaches back to the effective date your record supports.
- VA Disability Appeals: We take each reason the VA gave for ruling against you, test it against your claims file and the rating criteria, and build an appeal that answers those reasons one at a time.
- Rating Increases: When a back injury, hearing loss, or PTSD symptoms get worse after the VA rates them, we gather current treatment records and exam findings and ask for the higher rating your condition supports now.
- Special Monthly Compensation: Needing another person’s help with daily care, blindness, or losing the use of a hand or foot can qualify you for extra compensation, paid at separate rates from the standard schedule.
- Individual Unemployability: When service-connected conditions have ended your ability to hold steady work, TDIU can pay you at the 100% rate even though your combined rating is lower. We put together the medical opinions and work history that show the VA why you can’t keep a job.
- DIC and Survivor Benefits: When a veteran’s death is linked to service, we help the surviving spouse, children, or dependent parents pursue Dependency and Indemnity Compensation and other survivor benefits the family may qualify for.
What Compensation and Benefits Are Available to You?
Each service-connected condition gets a VA rating between 0% and 100%, in steps of 10, and that rating determines the tax-free monthly compensation you receive.
With more than one rated condition, the VA combines your percentages through a formula instead of adding them together, so two 30% ratings do not make 60%. Enter your ratings in our VA disability calculator to estimate your combined percentage and payment.
For a veteran with no spouse, children, or dependent parents, the VA currently pays:
- 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
Maine State Benefits
Your payment grows at qualifying rating levels when you support a spouse, kids, or a parent, and each year’s cost-of-living adjustment lifts the whole table.
Maine also offers state benefits for disabled veterans, including property tax exemptions, a motor vehicle excise tax exemption for veterans with a total service-connected disability, tuition waivers for dependents, and more.
Work with us to get your benefits
When Should You Hire a VA Disability Lawyer?
Once the VA has made a decision you disagree with, you have a limited window to ask for a review, and waiting too long can cost you months of back pay. A VA-accredited attorney can identify the reason for the decision, any errors that were made, and choose the type of appeal that best fits the situation.
Choosing a Review Lane
- Supplemental Claim: You add new and relevant evidence, such as a medical opinion or records from a private doctor, that speaks to why the VA said no.
- Higher-Level Review: A senior VA reviewer looks at the same evidence again, with no new records allowed. This lane suits a decision in which the VA misapplied the rules or overlooked something already in your file.
- Board Appeal: A Veterans Law Judge at the Board of Veterans’ Appeals decides your case, and you can submit new evidence or ask for a hearing.
Picking the wrong lane can cost you months, because the lanes differ in whether they accept new evidence and in how long a decision takes. If we take your case, we prepare the filing, track every deadline, and deal with the VA for you.
Winning Your VA Appeal in Maine
To connect a condition to your service, the VA must find three elements in your file, and your appeal has to supply whichever one it found missing:
- A current diagnosis: A VA or private provider has diagnosed the condition you have today and recorded it in your treatment notes.
- Something that happened in service: Service treatment records, personnel files, or statements from people who served with you document the injury, illness, event, or exposure.
- A medical nexus: A qualified clinician gives a reasoned opinion that service at least as likely as not caused or aggravated your condition.
A claim can fall short on any of those elements when:
- The nexus opinion is missing, or it states a conclusion with no reasoning the VA can weigh.
- Treatment records show years without care, and nothing in the file explains why.
- The VA examiner saw you on a good day and didn’t record how often your symptoms flare.
- Service records don’t show the event, and no statement from a fellow service member describes what happened.
If your records are split among Togus, a VA clinic closer to home, and a private doctor, we gather them into one file. When the nexus is missing, we arrange an independent medical opinion that answers the VA’s reason for denial.
Let’s discuss your case
Toxic Exposure Claims
Federal environmental records document contamination at Maine military installations from the shipyard in Kittery to the former Air Force base in Limestone. Maine lawmakers also created a commission to study the toxic herbicides Maine National Guard members were exposed to while training at Canadian Forces Base Gagetown. In 2025, the sponsor of a bipartisan bill to reestablish that commission said the federal government is failing Guard members harmed by those chemicals, and many of those veterans have filed VA claims for illnesses they trace to that training.
- Brunswick Naval Air Station: EPA placed the former Navy base in Brunswick on the National Priorities List in 1987. Its site profile names chlorinated solvents and pesticides among the contaminants, with an eastern groundwater plume and landfills among the cleanup areas. PFOA and PFOS from firefighting foam have also been detected, and the Navy is investigating the places on base where the foam was stored.
- Loring Air Force Base: The former base in Limestone joined the National Priorities List in 1990. EPA traces the contamination to waste oils, fuels cleaned from aircraft and vehicles, spent solvents, PCBs, pesticides, and three landfills, and sampling has confirmed PFAS in groundwater, surface water, soil, sediment, and fish. The shops that maintained aircraft and vehicles were among the places those solvents and fuels were used, and EPA classifies PCBs as probable human carcinogens.
- Portsmouth Naval Shipyard: On Seavey Island in Kittery, the shipyard’s groundwater, soil, and sediment held PCBs, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, metals, and benzene, and lead was the main soil contaminant at a former lead-battery recharging building. EPA removed the site from the National Priorities List in 2024 after cleanup, but the record of what was there during your service remains. ATSDR reports that long-term benzene exposure can cause bone marrow cancers, including acute myelogenous leukemia.
- Bangor Air National Guard Base: The Defense Department has found PFAS in the groundwater and soil of the Air Guard base at Bangor International Airport, most likely from firefighting foam. ATSDR notes that people exposed to high levels of these chemicals may have an increased risk of kidney or testicular cancer.
- Navy VLF Transmitter Cutler: At the Navy station in the coastal town of Cutler, the Navy reports PFAS in the groundwater at the NSA Cutler Fire Station and in nearby drinking water wells.
- Bog Brook Training Site: The Maine National Guard trains at Bog Brook in Gilead, where its engineer soldiers held cold-weather exercises in March 2025. If you trained there and later developed a serious illness, your training records can help place you at the site.
The PACT Act expanded benefits to reach more veterans exposed to burn pits, Agent Orange, and other toxins. An earlier VA denial doesn’t have to be the last word. Our lawyers can appeal that decision and fight for the benefits your exposure has cost you.
VA Lawyers and Legal Resources Near You
Bangor
Maine Bureau of Veterans’ Services, Bangor Office: 35 State Hospital Drive, Bangor, ME 04401 | Phone: 207-941-3005
Portland
Maine Bureau of Veterans’ Services, Portland Office: 151 Jetport Boulevard, Room 138W, Portland, ME 04102 | Phone: 207-822-2391
VA Facilities and Veterans Services in Maine
Veterans Service Offices
- Maine Bureau of Veterans’ Services: State veterans service officers offer assistance at offices in Augusta, Bangor, Caribou, Lewiston, Machias, Portland, Springvale, and Togus, with visiting hours in several smaller towns.
- VA Regional Benefit Office at Togus: Benefits and claims help on the Togus campus, weekdays from 8:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. 1 VA Center, Building 248, Augusta, ME 04330. Phone: 800-827-1000.
VA Medical Center and Clinics
- Togus VA Medical Center: 1 VA Center, Augusta, ME 04330. Phone: 207-623-8411.
- Bangor VA Clinic: 35 State Hospital Drive, Bangor, ME 04401.
- Calais VA Clinic: 50 Union Street, Calais, ME 04619.
- Fort Kent VA Clinic: 197 East Main Street, Medical Office Building, Fort Kent, ME 04743.
- Houlton VA Clinic: 20 Hartford Street, Houlton, ME 04730.
- Lewiston VA Clinic: 15 Challenger Drive, Lewiston, ME 04240.
- Lincoln VA Clinic: 99 River Road, Lincoln, ME 04457.
- Portland VA Clinic: 141 West Commercial Street, Portland, ME 04102.
- Presque Isle VA Clinic: 732 Main Street, Presque Isle, ME 04769.
- Rumford VA Clinic: 10 Railroad Street, Rumford, ME 04276.
- VA Maine clinic appointments: Every clinic on this list shares one phone line, 877-421-8263.
Vet Centers
- Bangor Vet Center: 615 Odlin Road, Suite 3, Bangor, ME 04401. Phone: 207-947-3391.
- Lewiston Vet Center: 35 Westminster Street, Lewiston, ME 04240. Phone: 207-783-0068.
- Northern Maine Vet Center: 456 York Street, Caribou, ME 04736. Phone: 207-496-3900.
- Portland, ME Vet Center: 707 Sable Oaks Drive, Suite 030, South Portland, ME 04106. Phone: 207-780-3584.
- Sanford Vet Center: 21 Bradeen Street, Springvale, ME 04083. Phone: 207-490-1513.
Housing Support for Homeless and At-Risk Maine Veterans
If you’re homeless or close to losing your housing, VA Maine’s homeless veteran program can line up immediate food and shelter, a transitional or permanent home, job training and life skills education, money to keep you from losing housing, treatment for addiction or depression, and medical and dental care. The state’s Homeless Veterans Coordination Team is reachable at 207-287-7019.
HUD’s 2025 Point-in-Time count for Maine counted 127 veterans without a home across the state on the night of January 22, 2025. Others not in that count are sleeping on a friend’s couch or living one missed payment away from eviction.
A denied claim or a rating set too low can keep money from you at the moment you need it to stay housed. Hill & Ponton moves appeals for veterans who have lost their housing, or could soon lose it, to the front of the line, and you won’t owe us an attorney fee unless we win and you get paid by the VA.
Meet Our Expert Legal Team
VA attorneys and case professionals representing veterans from Kittery to Aroostook County and across the country.
Let Us Fight For Your Benefits
Need help appealing a VA decision? Contact our disability lawyers for a free evaluation of your claim.