Hello this is Michael Quatrini and I have a veterans (disability) update for you. As some of you may have heard, the Veterans Administration is trying to totally overhaul their appeal system. What does this mean for your case if you already have one going or in the future? February 14, 2019 will the date when any decisions rendered after that will fall under the new appeal system. The problem? We don’t actually have regulations written by the VA and approved by Congress at this point as to how that new appeal system is going to work. This should make veterans nervous, but the good news is that you will have us to try to figure that process out. The long and short of it is this: if you already have a case pending on appeal through the VA, your case will stay in the same process that it’s already in.

We can continue to handle that case just as we’ve been doing for the last year or even longer. If you receive a decision after February 14, 2019, we’ll be in the new appeal process. The good news is QuatriniRafferty is on the forefront of a) reading whatever proposed regulations have already been published and b) giving guidance to lawyers across the United States on what that appeal process is going to look like. I personally was in San Francisco about two weeks ago where I did a three-hour presentation on what, how, when and why of the new appeal system. I look forward to sharing these thoughts with you. Let’s hope that after February 14thof 2019, we actually have real regulations to be able to explain to everyone the process. I look forward to going over those with you.