Many veterans come away from the VA claims process feeling worse than when they started. The system is cold and complicated, and it wears people down, especially when you live with a condition every day and the VA refuses to acknowledge everything it takes from you. Hill & Ponton was created to give veterans a different experience.
In the 40 years since Brian Hill, a Navy veteran of the Vietnam War, founded this law firm, its purpose has remained helping disabled veterans overturn unfair VA decisions and collect the benefits they earned. VA disability law is all we practice, and our attorneys have spent decades clearing the bureaucratic hurdles that stand between veterans and their compensation.
If the VA denied you or set your rating too low, we’re ready to take up the fight, with no upfront costs. We’ve represented thousands of veterans nationwide, and we stand just as firmly with Michigan’s veterans, from Detroit to the Upper Peninsula. Tell us about your case, and let our experience work for you.
Our Legal Services for Michigan Veterans and Their Families
- Disability Compensation: We pursue the complete monthly benefit a condition warrants, together with back pay counted from the day your entitlement began.
- Appeals: When the VA denies or underrates a claim, we handle the entire appeal process on your behalf.
- Rating Increases: A condition that has worsened deserves a re-rated percentage. We prove the change and claim the difference.
- Special Monthly Compensation: The heaviest losses, amputation, blindness, or needing another person’s aid and attendance every day, can push pay past even the 100% level.
- Total Disability Based on Individual Unemployability: Veterans who cannot hold steady work because of service-connected conditions may qualify for TDIU and its 100%-level payment, whatever the combined math says. We assist with the medical and vocational proof as well as the legal argument.
- Survivor Benefits: A service-connected death can open the possibility of a claim for DIC and other survivor benefits. We help the family get all the support and resources available.
What Compensation and Benefits Are Available to You?
The disability rating drives most of what the VA pays or provides, so the higher the percentage, the higher the monthly payment. Even a small rating increase can significantly change the compensation.
The VA’s monthly rates for a Michigan veteran with no dependents can go up to almost $4000.
- 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
In addition to these payments, VA health care and access to federal programs, Michigan offers its own benefits for disabled veterans, such as a full homestead property tax exemption for veterans with a 100% permanent and total rating, for TDIU recipients, and for specially adapted housing grantees. Other discounts and opportunities are also available. If a low rating locks you out of Michigan’s state benefits, we can fight to increase it.
Work with us to get your benefits
When Should You Hire a VA Disability Lawyer?
Filing the initial claim is usually straightforward. But the VA routinely denies initial claims, and what follows a denial is a complicated process involving fixed deadlines, particular forms, and specific evidence standards.
Hill & Ponton practices VA disability law and nothing else. We take on denied and underrated claims, chase down the records the file lacks, brief the medical experts, and present the case the way raters and judges expect to see it.
Your VA Appeal Options
- Supplemental Claim: Challenges the decision with new and relevant evidence the VA has not seen before.
- Higher-Level Review: Hands the same file to a more experienced reviewer to find the mistake, with no new evidence involved.
- Board of Veterans’ Appeals: Brings the case before a Veterans Law Judge, by direct review, with new evidence, or at a hearing.
When the VA underestimates what your condition takes from you, we push back. The case review is free, nothing is charged to begin, and we only get paid if you get paid. Tell us what happened and let us see how we can help.
What Does It Take to Win Your VA Disability Appeal?
- Current diagnosis: a clinician’s confirmation, on paper, that the condition exists now.
- In-service event: the injury, illness, or exposure documented in your service history.
- Nexus: a qualified medical opinion connecting the two as “at least as likely as not” service-related.
The weak points our lawyers address and fix most often are:
- Nexus letters that hedge instead of conclude
- Records requests that never went out
- Exams the VA weighed wrong or skipped past
VA Disability for Toxic Exposure
Several Michigan installations have contamination on the record, and a veteran who served at one may hold a claim tied to it.
- Wurtsmith Air Force Base (Oscoda): Closed in 1993, with PFAS known in its groundwater since 2010 and more than $85 million invested in cleanup; the base’s record also spans TCE, benzene, and heavy metals.
- Selfridge Air National Guard Base (Harrison Township): A state PFAS investigation site where a 2016 review flagged 28 potential release locations for firefighting foam, and the PFOS advisory on Lake St. Clair fish traces back through the base’s groundwater path.
- Camp Grayling (Grayling): The National Guard’s largest training post, per the state’s PFAS program, where firefighting foam stored and used at the airfield and equipment sites put PFAS into groundwater found in 2016.
- K.I. Sawyer Air Force Base (Marquette County): A closed Upper Peninsula base where firefighting foam left PFAS behind.
- Belmont Armory (Belmont): Sampling found firefighting-foam PFAS at 457.10 ppt, well past the federal lifetime health advisory of 70 ppt.
- Grand Ledge Army Aviation Support Facility (Grand Ledge): The former firefighting unit’s foam left PFAS in soil and groundwater, uncovered in 2019.
Legal Resources and Lawyers Near You
Detroit
Detroit VA Regional Benefit Office: 477 Michigan Avenue, 12th Floor, Detroit, MI 48226. National benefits line: 800-827-1000
Muskegon
Muskegon County Department of Veterans Affairs: 1903 Marquette, Suite A101, Muskegon, MI 49442. Phone: 231-724-7143
Michigan VA Facilities Serving Veterans
Veterans Service Offices
- Detroit VA Regional Benefit Office: Patrick V. McNamara Federal Building, 477 Michigan Avenue, 12th Floor, Detroit, MI 48226. National benefits line: 800-827-1000
- Michigan Veterans Affairs Agency: 3423 N. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., Bldg 32, Lansing, MI 48906. Phone: 1-800-642-4838 (1-800-MICH-VET)
VA Medical Centers
- John D. Dingell VA Medical Center: 4646 John R Street, Detroit, MI 48201. Phone: 313-576-1000
- LTC Charles S. Kettles VA Medical Center: 2215 Fuller Road, Ann Arbor, MI 48105. Phone: 734-769-7100
- Battle Creek VA Medical Center: 5500 Armstrong Road, Battle Creek, MI 49037. Phone: 269-966-5600
- Aleda E. Lutz VA Medical Center: 1500 Weiss Street, Saginaw, MI 48602. Phone: 989-497-2500
- Oscar G. Johnson VA Medical Center: 325 East H Street, Iron Mountain, MI 49801. Phone: 906-774-3300
Each of the five systems also operates community clinics across its region, from Adrian and Flint to Marquette and Hancock; the VA facility locator lists the one nearest you.
Vet Centers
- Detroit Vet Center: 11214 East Jefferson Avenue, Detroit, MI 48214. Phone: 313-822-1141
- Dearborn Vet Center: 19855 Outer Drive, Suite 105 W, Dearborn, MI 48124. Vet Center call line: 877-927-8387
- Pontiac Vet Center: 44200 Woodward Avenue, Suite 108, Pontiac, MI 48341. Phone: 248-874-1015
- Macomb County Vet Center: 42621 Garfield Road, Suite 105, Clinton Township, MI 48038. Phone: 586-412-0107
- Grand Rapids Vet Center: 2050 Breton Road SE, Suite 100, Grand Rapids, MI 49546. Phone: 616-285-5795
- Great Lakes Bay Vet Center: 6387 Westside Saginaw Road, Bay City, MI 48706. Phone: 989-321-4650
- Traverse City Vet Center: 4960 Skyview Court, Traverse City, MI 49684. Phone: 231-935-0051
- Escanaba Vet Center: 301 North 30th Street, Escanaba, MI 49829. Vet Center call line: 877-927-8387
Housing Assistance and Support for Michigan Veterans
Michigan’s combined 2025 Point-in-Time count reported 428 veterans among 10,155 people without stable housing across the state’s Continuums of Care on one January night. But many more are affected by housing insecurity and unemployment.
The VA’s homeless-veteran programs reach the whole state through its five health care systems: HUD-VASH vouchers with case management, street and shelter outreach under Health Care for Homeless Veterans, beds through the Grant and Per Diem program, and prevention and rapid rehousing through Supportive Services for Veteran Families.
At Hill & Ponton, we do our part by prioritizing homeless and unemployed veterans. We know that a benefits check that should have arrived and didn’t is a common cause of a housing crisis. If you were denied, delayed, or underrated by the VA, entrust our lawyers with the case: you’ll get a free review, an honest opinion, no upfront cost, and a fee only on a win.
Meet Our Expert Legal Team
VA disability attorneys and professionals standing with veterans across Michigan and far past its borders.
Let Us Fight For Your Benefits
Need help appealing a VA decision? Contact our Michigan VA appeal lawyers for a free evaluation.