VA Disability Lawyers Assisting Veterans in Portland, ME

Our Legal Services for Portland Veterans

• Disability Compensation: We check your rating decision for conditions the VA never rated, percentages that don’t fit the medical evidence, and effective dates set too late, then pursue the compensation and retroactive pay the record supports.
• VA Disability Appeals: A denial letter lists the VA’s reasons. We compare each one with your service and medical records, gather the evidence needed to answer it, and take the claim through the review lane that fits.
• Rating Increases: A condition that has worsened since your last VA exam may qualify for a higher percentage. We collect current exam findings and treatment notes and request the rating you now meet under the schedule.
• Special Monthly Compensation: We look for extra compensation the VA should have awarded, such as for an amputation, loss of vision, or needing aid with basic tasks from another person, and appeal when it’s missing.
• Individual Unemployability: Veterans whose service-connected conditions prevent substantially gainful employment can receive payment at the 100% rate through TDIU, even with a lower combined rating. We document your limits at work with medical and employment evidence.
• DIC and Survivor Benefits: If your spouse or parent died from a condition connected to service, we help you pursue Dependency and Indemnity Compensation and other benefits available to surviving spouses.

Toxic Exposure Claims

Toxic contamination has been documented at military bases like the former Brunswick Naval Air Station, the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittery, or the former Pease Air Force Base across the New Hampshire line. Under the PACT Act, the VA now offers expanded health care and benefits to veterans exposed to burn pit smoke, Agent Orange, or other toxins.

• Brunswick Naval Air Station (Brunswick): EPA’s cleanup at the former Navy base includes a plume of chlorinated solvents in the groundwater on its eastern side. Testing has also picked up PFOA and PFOS, and the Navy is looking into the spots where firefighting foam was stored.
• Portsmouth Naval Shipyard (Kittery): EPA found PCBs, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, metals, and benzene in the shipyard’s groundwater, soil, and sediment, and a building once used to recharge lead batteries left lead as the chief contaminant in the soil around it. ATSDR links long-term benzene exposure to bone marrow cancers, including acute myelogenous leukemia.
• Pease Air Force Base (Newington and Portsmouth, New Hampshire): EPA reports that Air Force wastes contaminated the soil, groundwater, surface water, and sediment, with jet fuel floating on the groundwater at a former fire department training area and PFAS found in groundwater and private drinking water wells.
• Bog Brook Training Site (Gilead): The Maine National Guard trains at this site in the town of Gilead, including engineer and cold-weather exercises held in March 2025. Your training records from Bog Brook can help show the VA when you were there.

Toxic-exposure claims are hard because the illness often shows up long after you’ve left the base, sometimes decades later. A past denial can still be appealed, and our lawyers are ready to take that fight on for you.

When Should You Hire a VA Disability Lawyer?

Bringing in a lawyer makes the most sense after the VA rules against you, because the lane you pick and how quickly you file both affect what you can recover. A lawyer reads the decision, pins down what the VA got wrong, and builds the argument for the lane you choose.

• Supplemental Claim: Best when you have new evidence, like a private medical opinion or records the VA never saw, that responds to the denial.
• Higher-Level Review: A senior reviewer reconsiders the existing file with no new evidence, which works when the VA made a clear error with what it already had.
• Board Appeal: Your case goes to a Veterans Law Judge, with a choice of direct review, a review with new evidence, or a hearing.

Not sure which lane fits your case? Request a free evaluation. A lane that doesn’t match the problem in your decision can add months to your appeal, and only some lanes let you submit new evidence. If we represent you, we prepare the submission and stay on the case until the VA or the Board issues a decision.

VA Facilities and Veterans Services in the Portland Area

• Maine Bureau of Veterans’ Services, Portland Office: State veterans service officers who prepare VA claims for free, by appointment. 151 Jetport Boulevard, Room 138W, Portland, ME 04102. Phone: 207-822-2391.
• Togus VA Medical Center: The VA Maine medical center in Augusta, open 24 hours a day. 1 VA Center, Augusta, ME 04330. Phone: 207-623-8411.
• Portland VA Clinic: VA Maine’s outpatient clinic in the city. 141 West Commercial Street, Portland, ME 04102. Phone: 877-421-8263.
• Lewiston VA Clinic: Another VA Maine outpatient clinic for veterans north of Portland. 15 Challenger Drive, Lewiston, ME 04240. Phone: 877-421-8263.
• Portland, ME Vet Center: Counseling for depression, PTSD, and the effects of military sexual trauma, at an office in South Portland. 707 Sable Oaks Drive, Suite 030, South Portland, ME 04106. Phone: 207-780-3584.

Housing Support for Homeless and At-Risk Veterans

Through VA Maine homeless veteran care, Portland veterans who are homeless or at risk can get immediate food and shelter, transitional or permanent housing, job training, financial support to prevent homelessness, help with re-entry after jail, addiction and depression treatment, and health and dental care. A homeless services care coordinator helps you choose among them. You can also call the state’s Homeless Veterans Coordination Team at 207-287-7019.

When a denied claim or low rating is making it harder to keep a roof over your head, Hill & Ponton treats your appeal as a priority. If you’re in a shelter, staying with family, or facing eviction, we want to hear from you, and you pay nothing unless your appeal succeeds.