A condition from your service doesn’t stay behind when you come home. It shows up in the work you can no longer do, the sleep you don’t get, and the appointments that fill your calendar. When the VA denies that condition or rates it far below what it costs you, the decision can be challenged, and you don’t have to fight it without help.
Since 1986, Hill & Ponton’s VA-accredited attorneys have taken on appeals for veterans and survivors, and disability law is the only area we practice. Of the cases we handle, we win 96%, and there’s no attorney fee unless you win. Take the first step with a free case evaluation.
Our Legal Services for Minneapolis Veterans
- Disability Compensation: Your award should cover every condition your service caused or worsened, at the right percentage, starting on the right date. We compare the rating decision with your records and pursue any back pay that’s missing.
- VA Disability Appeals: Every denial rests on stated reasons. We check each reason against your evidence and the regulations, then build the appeal to answer them.
- Rating Increases: If your rating hasn’t changed while your condition has, we gather updated treatment records and exam results and request the higher rating your symptoms meet.
- Special Monthly Compensation: We check your award for every level of Special Monthly Compensation your disabilities support, including for blindness, the loss of use of a limb, or being housebound, and appeal when the VA misses one.
- Individual Unemployability: If your service-connected conditions have made steady employment impossible, we pursue individual unemployability at the 100% rate, backed by medical opinions and your work history.
- DIC and Survivor Benefits: Surviving spouses, children, and parents can turn to us for DIC and other survivor benefits claims after a service-connected death, including appeals when the VA denies them.
What a VA Rating Pays Each Month
Ratings go from 0% to 100% in steps of 10, and your percentage determines the tax-free amount the VA pays you every month.
The VA doesn’t add multiple ratings together. It combines them through a table, so two 50% ratings don’t make 100%. Check your numbers with our VA disability calculator.
Monthly compensation for a single veteran with no dependents:
- 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
Dependents raise the payment at qualifying rating levels, and the yearly cost-of-living adjustment changes every figure.
Minneapolis veterans can also apply for Minnesota’s state benefits, such as the homestead market value exclusion, a free state park pass, a one-time education grant for veterans who have used up their federal education benefits, and more.
Work with us to get your benefits
Toxic Exposure Claims
Three sites with federal cleanup records sit within about a dozen miles of downtown Minneapolis, and Camp Ripley, the Minnesota National Guard’s training center, is a two-hour drive north.
- Minneapolis-Saint Paul Joint Air Reserve Station (next to Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, about 9 miles by road): From 1963 to 1972, a 2-acre landfill at the station received wastes such as painting sludge and sludge from leaded aviation gas. The landfill came off EPA’s National Priorities List in 1996, and EPA’s 2023 review called for PFAS sampling there after PFAS turned up at the neighboring Air Force Reserve base.
- Naval Industrial Reserve Ordnance Plant (Fridley, about 10 miles by road): EPA found TCE in the groundwater under this 83-acre former Navy plant near the Mississippi River in 1981, and the groundwater cleanup is still on the National Priorities List. ATSDR cites strong evidence that TCE can cause kidney cancer.
- Twin Cities Army Ammunition Plant (Arden Hills and New Brighton, about 12 miles by road): Waste from decades of Army production went into 14 disposal locations between 1941 and 1981, and EPA has tracked the site on the National Priorities List since 1983, with TCE, vinyl chloride, 1,4-dioxane, PCBs, and metals in the groundwater. EPA classifies PCBs as probable human carcinogens.
- Camp Ripley (Little Falls, about 105 miles by road): If you trained at Camp Ripley, your orders and training records document when you were there, which is part of the exposure evidence an illness claim needs.
A cancer or chronic illness from contaminated groundwater may not show up for years, and by then the VA may doubt the connection. If the VA already denied an exposure claim, you can still appeal it, and our lawyers can press for the compensation you’re owed.
The Three Things Every VA Claim Must Show
To connect your condition to service, the VA looks for three elements in your file:
- A current diagnosis: A VA or private clinician has identified the condition you’re claiming and documented it in your records.
- An in-service cause: Your service treatment records, personnel file, or a buddy statement shows the injury, illness, event, or exposure.
- A nexus opinion: A medical professional explains why your condition is at least as likely as not connected to that cause.
Claims often come up short when:
- The medical opinion in the file came from an examiner who never reviewed your service records.
- The event is missing from your service records, and no one who served with you has written a statement about it.
- The VA rated your condition on an exam that didn’t capture flare-ups or bad days.
- Private treatment records never made it into the file.
Each of those problems can be fixed with evidence: records requests, statements from people who saw what happened, and an independent medical opinion that addresses the VA’s reasons.
Tell us about your case
When Should You Hire a VA Disability Lawyer?
In September 2025, the Hennepin County Veteran Resource Fair and Claims Clinic brought Veterans Benefits Administration representatives to the Minnesota National Guard Armory on Northeast Broadway to help Minneapolis veterans with disability compensation claims. Events like that get claims in front of the VA, but the VA still decides each one, and not every decision comes out right.
Once the VA has issued a decision you disagree with, the review lane you choose controls what evidence you can use and how long a decision will take. A lawyer helps most at that point, by matching the lane to the problem in your decision and keeping the case on schedule.
- Supplemental Claim: For cases that need new and relevant evidence, such as a private doctor’s opinion or treatment records that weren’t in the file.
- Higher-Level Review: A senior reviewer reexamines the record the VA already had, and no new evidence is allowed.
- Board Appeal: A Veterans Law Judge decides your case on the existing record, with new evidence, or after a hearing, and the appeals timeline guide shows how long each option takes.
If you received a decision recently, act soon, because each lane has a filing deadline. A free case evaluation from our team lets you find out whether we can take your appeal. If we do, we prepare the filing, meet the deadlines, and deal with the VA until your case is decided.
VA Facilities and Veterans Services in the Minneapolis Area
- Hennepin County Veterans Services: The county’s veterans service officers, weekdays from 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Minneapolis, MN 55487. Phone: 612-348-3300.
- Minneapolis VA Medical Center: The main hospital for VA Minneapolis health care. One Veterans Drive, Minneapolis, MN 55417. Phone: 612-725-2000.
- Minneapolis VA Clinic: The downtown clinic at the Community Resource and Referral Center, weekdays from 7:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. 1201 Harmon Place, Suite 103, Minneapolis, MN 55403. Phone: 612-313-3240.
- Fort Snelling VA Clinic: 1 Federal Drive, Fort Snelling, MN 55111. Phone: 612-467-7910.
- Maplewood VA Clinic: 3100 Kennard Street, Suite 100, Maplewood, MN 55109. Phone: 651-225-5420.
- Twin Cities Vet Center: The Vet Center for the southern metro, in Eagan. 2113 Cliff Drive, Suite 100, Eagan, MN 55122. Phone: 612-243-7920.
- Anoka Vet Center: The northern metro’s Vet Center, with a satellite location at Great River Landing in Minneapolis. 700 East Main Street, Anoka, MN 55303. Phone: 763-503-2220.
- St. Paul VA Regional Benefit Office: VA benefits help at Fort Snelling, weekdays from 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., walk-ins welcome with a photo ID. 1 Federal Drive, Fort Snelling, St. Paul, MN 55111. Phone: 800-827-1000.
Housing Support for Homeless and At-Risk Veterans
VA Minneapolis homeless veteran care connects Minneapolis veterans who are homeless or at risk with help finding transitional or permanent housing, emergency food and shelter, job training and life skills education, support after release from jail, money to prevent homelessness, treatment for addiction and depression, and medical and dental care.
When a denied claim or an underrated disability is part of why you’re struggling to keep housing, Hill & Ponton moves your appeal up our list. If you’ve lost your housing or expect to, tell us when you reach out, and we’ll treat your case as urgent. There’s no attorney fee unless we win.
Meet Our Expert Legal Team
VA attorneys and case professionals representing veterans in Hennepin County, Minnesota and nationwide.
Let Us Fight For Your Benefits
Need help appealing a VA decision? Contact our disability lawyers for a free evaluation of your claim.