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Numerous organizations work with law firms to pair volunteer attorneys with service members or vets who need help. One is the ABA Military Pro Bono Project, part of the ABA Military and Veterans Legal Center.
“We’re really helping with filling a gap in access to justice,” says Mary C. Meixner, director of the center and counsel for the ABA Standing Committee on Legal Assistance for Military Personnel. The pro bono project matches volunteer attorneys with service members referred by officers in the Judge Advocate General’s Corps, or JAGs. Another program, Operation Stand-By, connects military attorneys with civilian attorneys who can share expertise.
Meixner says military families frequently move and often don’t have the money to hire private attorneys.
An ABA volunteer, Patrick J. Hughes, co-founder of the Patriots Law Group in Maryland and Virginia, recently helped a service member whose lender got a garnishment that froze the man’s bank account. The service member was stationed in Wisconsin; the dispute was in Maryland, and he couldn’t pay his rent.
Hughes, who served six years as a JAG in the Air Force, says enlisted personnel encounter the same legal troubles as anyone else—a landlord not returning a security deposit or an issue with child support—but often don’t have the funds to hire a lawyer or may not be able to come to court, especially if they’re posted far away.
“As lawyers, we have a particular duty to provide pro bono legal services,” Hughes says. “It really helps that I can speak their language.”
The National Veterans Legal Services Program also handles pro bono cases and far-reaching class actions. The group famously won a 1991 consent decree in Nehmer v. U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, which resulted in billions in retroactive disability and death benefits for Agent Orange-exposed Vietnam veterans and their families.
The group’s Lawyers Serving Warriors program matches individual vets with private law firms and corporate legal departments willing to donate services. It also provides lawyer trainings.
Barton F. Stichman, NVLSP co-founder and executive director, says the pro bono cases run the gamut. Some are veterans who were wrongly discharged for a “personality disorder” when they actually had PTSD. Or they survived military sexual trauma but were locked out of disability benefits despite having post-traumatic stress disorder and depression.
In such cases, an attorney can help fix the veteran’s record and then follow up with the VA to ensure proper benefits go through.
Civilian lawyers are also lending a hand
Not all the lawyers who step up for veterans and service members have worn a uniform.
David R. Seligman, a partner at Kirkland & Ellis in Chicago, is an expert in corporate restructurings and insolvency proceedings who uses his knowledge of bankruptcy and debtor rights to help veterans with alleged VA debts.
Seligman sees his pro bono work as gathering documentation, figuring out whether the VA made an error and coming up with a strategy—whether to challenge the original decision, reduce the debt or arrange a favorable payment plan.
“There’s a special feeling when you’re able to help those who’ve sacrificed their time and potentially put themselves in harm’s way for our country.”
McHugh agrees that the pro bono work is rewarding, not only for the legal challenges but also for the impact it has on the lives of those who’ve served. Whether it’s helping a veteran who got money for college or a service member who wins a military sexual trauma case and finally gets “an acknowledgment that ‘you were right’; they believe you”—the legal work is infused with the same camaraderie he experienced in the service.
“You take care of your people,” he says. “You take care of your soldiers. You put their interests ahead of your own, and you carry that with you forever.”
This story was originally published in the April/May 2021 issue of the ABA Journal under the headline: “Veteran Lawyers: Attorneys lend skills to help current and former service members.”
From: https://www.abajournal.com/magazine/article/attorneys-lend-skills-to-help-current-and-former-service-members
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