Business Opportunities for Attorneys

Package Consultation Fees
A number of attorneys charge a package fee to help a client obtain the Pension benefit. This is reasonable, because of the amount of time it takes to get a claim through the system. It is also a lucrative opportunity to provide many legal services at one time. However, in some cases, these fees might be considered by VA to be unreasonable.

 

Potentially unreasonable fees for the billable work associated with obtaining a favorable claim may sometime in the future come under scrutiny by VA. You should be careful in this area. Congress is very sensitive to a perception that attorneys are taking advantage of veterans.

 

We believe a better way to generate package fees for your work is to expand your veterans consulting service to include Medicaid planning and/or long term care planning. It is likely that the promoting that you do for veterans benefits will bring in clients that need these other services as well.

 

By charging a fee to cover services that are not restricted by law, it would be difficult for VA to make a case that you were charging fees solely to provide a veterans benefit.

 

Personal Caregiver Contracts
We have already talked about the advantage of using caregiver contracts to attract new clients. This is another service that you can charge fees for. And it is a vital service because it would be difficult for most people to do these contracts without help.

 

Many attorneys prefer the name "personal care agreement" as opposed to "personal caregiver contract." It's the same thing. You have an advantage with caregiver contracts if you also do Medicaid planning as these contracts can be extended to cover both VA benefits and for Medicaid planning purposes.

 

The operations manual that comes with our veterans benefits consultants package goes into more detail by providing sample contracts, by providing court decisions and by providing the various strategies that are used in implementing these contracts.

 

Estate Planning, Trusts, Wills and Advance Directives
Opportunities for attorneys to become veterans benefits consultants would include estate planning services since the people they are working with are in the last stages of their life.

 

Because of the option of gifting assets in order to qualify for the veterans benefit, there may be some charitable gifting opportunities or possibly some opportunities for special types of trusts. There may also be some instances where property or the primary residence is to be retitled or placed in a trust and that involves other potential legal work.

 

Other Planning Opportunities

• Charitable Remainder Trust
• Irrevocable life insurance trust
• Guardianship planning
• Resolution of conflicts
• Solving elder abuse issues
• Trust "funding" by transfer of non-trust assets to trustee
• Trust administration support for trustee
• Medicaid lien accrual issues
• Estate settlement for fiduciary clients and heirs

Medicaid Planning
Probably the biggest opportunity in working with people who qualify for the veterans benefit is the need for Medicaid planning in conjunction with gifting assets or selling property. Since the rules are somewhat different between Medicaid and VA there needs to be coordination to make sure that gifting to qualify for Pension does not create a penalty for Medicaid.

 

Sale of Primary Residence or Other Property
Many people who need long-term care often have a good deal of cash tied up in their primary residence or other property. For those who are not planning on relying on Medicaid to pay for their care -- those who are seeking assisted living or home care services -- this cash may be necessary.

However, the sale of the property can produce assets that will interfere with qualifying both for the veterans benefit and for Medicaid. The cash could be converted into an immediate income annuity to provide for their needs and the balance if any could be gifted in an appropriate manner to enable them to qualify for the VA benefit. In addition, an attempt should be made to meet the gifting requirements for Medicaid should that become necessary.

 

Licensed for Financial Products
For those attorneys who also can license or choose to license for insurance products, there are opportunities for making commissions on the money that is generated from a sale, gifted or converted into income annuities.

 

Representing the Veteran Client before the VA
A change in statutes governing the representation of veterans was passed by Congress in 2006 and became effective in June of 2007. The new statutes now allow veterans to pay attorneys to represent them in the event a claim has been denied or in the event only a partial award has been made. The previous statute prevented charging a fee for representation until the Board of Appeals had made a ruling. The new statute allows representation earlier in the process when a claimant feels his or her case was not properly adjudicated and files a Notice of Disagreement (NOD). Many attorney groups who specialize in this area are conducting seminars on how to go about representing veterans.

 

Most of this attorney representation comes from disputed disability ratings for Compensation and most attorneys would find few business opportunities in representing veterans for Pension claims. Pension claims are typically much easier to adjudicate and result in fewer questionable decisions regarding disability.

Read more about the Veterans Benefits Consultants Package

Types of Clients Attracted to Veterans Benefits Consultants

There are probably three types of people who will come to you for help with veterans benefits.

 

The first of these are individuals or family members who simply want to obtain the benefit but don't want to pay any money for a consultation fee nor do they have any assets from which you might derive commissions. You need to have a way of dealing with these people and not send them away empty-handed. Otherwise, you will gain a reputation for being unfair in your offer to help people in the community obtain their benefits.

 

The second type of client you can expect is an individual or household that has assets and there is a desire to reallocate or gift those assets in order to qualify for Pension. These are the people you can help and derive income from fees or commissions.

 

Occasionally someone will come to you who has significant assets and possibly significant income. This is the third type of potential client. It might be foolish for someone with $800,000 in investments to give that money away in order to qualify for $1,843 a month in additional income. It depends on the circumstances. Also the consequences with Medicaid must be considered as well. It may be also possible that someone with significant income could never meet the income test as well.

 

Just because you can't help certain high-net-worth clients with Pension, these are just the kinds of people you want to meet with and help with other issues. Your help might include proper asset allocation, wealth preservation and estate planning including trusts and tax issues associated with passing assets to the next generation.

Read more about the Package See the contents of the Veterans Benefits Consultants Package