Why there is such a large pro se problem at the Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims?
Our country has provided veterans benefits since the American Revolution. In 1862 Congress imposed a five-dollar limit, later increased to ten dollars, on what an attorney could charge a veteran to represent the veteran on a claim for veterans benefits. This fee limitation statue was not intended at the time to bar attorneys from veterans law. Ten dollars was actually a reasonable fee for an attorney following the Civil War because the value of the dollar was much higher back then and because the veterans benefits process was a simple one. With the passage of time and inflation, the ten-dollar fee limit became an economic bar to the practice of law in this area. A system developed in which few attorneys practiced and non-attorneys from the veterans service organizations provided free representation to over 90 percent of the VA claimants.
