DES Legal Support Program
We provide free legal advice, support, and representation for our clients throughout the Disability Evaluation System (DES) process to ensure optimal disability determination outcomes via the DES.
There are a relatively small number of government attorneys. As such, they are often overwhelmed, understaffed, and insufficiently experienced to handle the enormous workload that the DES creates.
As government employees, these attorneys cannot file lawsuits against the government – which means that they are not able to escalate their clients’ cases through the Federal Court system.
Because of this limitation, the service branches are able to resolve cases “in-house” and per their own satisfaction. Cases are decided by military personnel and/or military appointed civilians who work for the branch of service making the decision. There are no judges, and the decision makers are not typically legally trained. As a result, these decision-makers can and do make life-altering mistakes with respect to Service Members’ disability determinations.
Having a dedicated legal support team – outside of the chain of command, with a strong background in the DES, and with access to the Federal Court system – ensures our Service Members are treated fairly and receive more favorable disability determination outcomes.
