How To Find VA Accreditation Status of a Lawyer, Claims Agent or VSO

In dealing with your Veterans Administration (VA) claim, you may wish the services of a lawyer, claims agent, or Veterans Service Organization (VSO). This is very common, but how can you be sure that a person claiming to be accreditted by the VA actually is?
Fortunately, the VA makes this easy. Simply go to its Accreditation Search page at http://www.va.gov/ogc/apps/accreditation/index.asp and follow the directions.

On that webpage, you must choose whether you're checking to see whether the person in question is an Attorney, Claims Representative, or VSO Rep. Then you put in some identifying information, such as the last name, and his "search". The VA will show you a list of persons matching that description; if the list is too long, you can resubmit your query with more conditions, such as state or even city.
We you get results, always click on the name to get detail. This will help avoid the situation in which two people have similar names.
On the same page, you also have the opportunity to check out VSOs. Simply scroll down to the "Search Recognized VSOs" section, enter information about the organization, and hit enter to get a list of VSOs, if any, that fit your criteria!