If you count yourself among the estimated 4,265 Salt Lake City veterans who do not have a service-connected disability, and it’s because the VA wrongly refused your claim…
Or if you’re one of the 2,204 local veterans the Census recorded as already rated, but the figure the VA settled on falls well short of what your condition costs you day to day…
Hill & Ponton can fight on your behalf. We are a team of VA-accredited disability attorneys with over 30 years of experience and a practice entirely devoted to appeals on behalf of veterans the system has denied or underpaid.
Whether your disability began in service or has worsened in the years since, we’ll carry the case forward from wherever it failed, and you owe us nothing unless we win your appeal.
Our Legal Services for Salt Lake City Veterans
- Disability Compensation: We work to win the full monthly award your service-connected condition justifies, along with any retroactive back pay that piled up while the VA kept you waiting.
- VA Disability Appeals: If the VA rejects your claim or settles on a rating that falls short, we shoulder the entire appeal, combing through the full record, tracking down evidence the VA passed over, lining up the medical opinions no one bothered to request, and rebuilding the claim the way it should have been filed.
- Rating Increases: Conditions rarely hold still, and most grow heavier with the years. Once yours has advanced past the VA’s last look, we document the decline and press for the higher rating, and the larger payment, your current health calls for.
- Special Monthly Compensation: Veterans living with the gravest injuries, an amputation, the loss of sight, or a housebound condition that demands constant care, may be owed more than the standard schedule pays through Special Monthly Compensation.
- Individual Unemployability: If service-connected conditions have shut you out of steady work, the VA can pay a sub-100% rating at the full 100% level. We assemble the medical and work-history proof a TDIU claim requires.
- DIC and Survivor Benefits: When a service-connected illness takes a veteran’s life, a surviving spouse, child, or parent may be entitled to Dependency and Indemnity Compensation and related support.
Turning Your VA Rating Into a Monthly Check
The VA assigns each service-connected condition a percentage on a scale that climbs by tens, and that single number drives how large your tax-free monthly payment turns out to be. The higher it lands, the bigger the check.
Carry more than one service-connected condition and the VA still will not simply sum your percentages. A separate combined-rating formula decides the total instead, which is exactly why a thorough, carefully documented filing pays off.
Curious what your own slate of ratings ought to add up to? Get a quick estimate using the VA disability calculator.
The figures below show the current monthly amount 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
Add a spouse, children, or dependent parents and these figures rise, and the VA adjusts the schedule every year so it keeps pace with the cost of living.
On top of federal compensation, veterans here may qualify for Utah state benefits, among them a property tax abatement that scales with your disability rating and can ease the household budget.
Put us to work on your benefits
Building a Toxic Exposure Claim That Holds Up
The Salt Lake Valley sits inside a long military footprint, from National Guard ranges to the depots and airfields ringing the region, and several of those sites are now tied to environmental contamination. A veteran who trained or worked at one of them and later fell ill may hold a compensable claim.
- Camp Williams (Bluffdale, roughly 25 miles south of downtown Salt Lake City): This Utah Army National Guard post relied for years on firefighting foam laced with PFAS, the “forever chemicals” now associated with testicular, kidney, and prostate cancer.
- Hill Air Force Base (near Layton): Generations of aircraft maintenance and fire-training drills turned this EPA Superfund site into a sprawl of TCE solvent and PFAS contamination across its soil and groundwater.
- Tooele Army Depot (about 35 miles southwest, in Tooele): Years of munitions storage and equipment overhaul landed this installation on the federal Superfund National Priorities List, with the solvent TCE, explosives residue, and heavy metals all logged in the groundwater.
If you spent time at any of these installations, or another one with toxic exposure, and now suffer from a related illness, you could get VA benefits even if previously denied. Our attorneys have successfully tied many veterans’ diagnoses to the exposures behind them and recovered the benefits that should have followed.
The Three Pieces Every Approved Claim Shares
The VA holds every claim to the same three-part test, and if a single part runs thin, the answer that comes back is almost always a denial.
- A current diagnosis – a licensed provider, whether VA or private, must document that you presently live with the condition at issue.
- An in-service cause – your record has to reflect some injury, illness, incident, or exposure from your time in service capable of having caused or aggravated it.
- A medical nexus – a qualified physician must link the two, concluding that it is “at least as likely as not” that service caused the condition. This is the joint where most claims break, and where strong medical evidence decides the outcome.
Our VA disability attorneys know how the VA weighs proof, where paperwork goes wrong, and how to frame a claim so your rating finally lines up with the life you actually lead.
Tell us about your case
When Is It Time to Bring in a VA Disability Lawyer?
Plenty of veterans file that first claim on their own, and that is a perfectly good place to start. But the day a denial lands in your mailbox, or the VA gives you a rating that ignores how heavy your days have become, bringing in seasoned counsel can change the outcome.
Our firm was built to guide veterans through a process that often feels designed to wear you down. When a claim is denied because of missing records or a decision that defies logic, we open the file, find the failure, and rebuild the case. That effort has carried thousands of veterans nationwide, and we are glad to bring it to Salt Lake City.
We keep pace with the constant churn in VA disability law, shifting through internal policy revisions and fresh rulings from the appeals courts, and we fold each development into the push for the bigger ratings, the unemployability awards, and the added compensation you may still have coming. The day your rating comes back wrong, or the VA bars the door entirely, we are ready to act.
A review of your case costs nothing, and we are paid only if your claim succeeds. If a VA decision has left you on the outside, let us help you find your way back in.
VA Resources Around Salt Lake City
- George E. Wahlen Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center – The hub of the VA Salt Lake City Health Care System, this full-service hospital delivers primary, specialty, surgical, mental health, and round-the-clock emergency care. 500 Foothill Boulevard, Salt Lake City, UT 84148. Phone: 801-582-1565
- Salt Lake City Vet Center – A community-based counseling center offering confidential, no-cost help with readjustment, PTSD, and military sexual trauma, set apart from the standard medical environment. 84 West 4800 South, Suite 100, Murray, UT 84107. Phone: 801-266-1499
- Salt Lake City VA Regional Benefit Office – The regional VA office that processes benefits, staffed by accredited representatives who help veterans prepare and track compensation claims and appeals at no charge. 550 Foothill Drive, Salt Lake City, UT 84158. Phone: 800-827-1000
- Utah Department of Veterans and Military Affairs – The state agency whose veteran service officers offer free claims assistance and connect veterans to Utah benefits such as the disabled veteran property tax abatement. 550 Foothill Drive, Suite 105, Salt Lake City, UT 84113. Phone: 801-326-2372
Assistance for Veterans Facing Homelessness
Veterans are often overrepresented in the homeless population. On a single night in January 2025, the 2025 Point-in-Time count for the Salt Lake City and County Continuum of Care counted 119 veterans within the broader group of 2,863 people experiencing homelessness across the area.
Veterans who have lost steady housing, or feel it slipping away, can lean on a mix of VA programs and government services built for lasting stability. Homeless veteran care for the region is coordinated by VA Salt Lake City Health Care through the George E. Wahlen VA Medical Center. VA facilities also provide mental health treatment, substance use care, and help returning to work.
A delayed or unfairly denied disability payment is often at the core of a housing emergency. That is exactly why, at Hill & Ponton, we prioritize homeless and at-risk veterans.
Has the VA stalled your benefits, denied you outright, or stuck you with a rating that sits far too low? Push back with Hill & Ponton in your corner. Nothing is due up front, and we earn a fee only when your appeal wins. Reach out and we will look over your claim at no cost.
Meet Our Expert Legal Team
VA Disability Attorneys and professionals championing veterans in Salt Lake City, Utah and nationwide.
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Need help appealing a VA decision? Contact our VA disability lawyers for a free evaluation of your claim.
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