New toolkit promotes legal clinics tailored to veterans' needs
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Maria Duvuvuei
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WASHINGTON – A new resource for law firms, legal services organizations and volunteer lawyers interested in providing holistic legal assistance for veterans was highlighted on today’s episode of the “Talk Justice” podcast.
The Legal Services Corporation's (LSC) 2022 Justice Gap report found that low-income veterans and other military personnel received inadequate or no legal help for 84% of their civil legal problems. According to the latest CHALENG survey conducted by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), seven of the 10 most commonly identified unmet needs among homeless and at-risk veterans involve legal issues.
“One of the things that actually drew me to LSC is that LSC and its grantees are seeking ways to meet those needs,” said Will Gunn, retired U.S. Air Force Colonel and vice president for legal affairs and general counsel at LSC. “Specifically, veterans that don't have the means to pay for an attorney can seek assistance from civil legal service providers and from pro bono clinics.”
Nick Hasenfus, a Marine Corps veteran and partner at Holland & Knight, and Stefanie Davis, deputy general counsel at the Legal Services Corporation (LSC), spoke to Gunn about the Veterans Task Force and their work to create the new toolkit for veterans’ legal clinics.
“By bringing no-cost legal assistance directly into those underserved communities, legal clinics help close the justice gap, protect veterans from losing benefits that they are entitled to and honor the nation's commitment to those who have served,” said Hasenfus.
Hasenfus said he once assisted a Vietnam War veteran who was facing a no-fault eviction, meaning he had not violated his lease and had made all rent payments. He lived there with his family for nearly 10 years before the landlord tried to evict them. The veteran asked that the landlord allow them to stay until his daughter completed the school year, but the landlord declined and also insisted that the veteran owed thousands of dollars in damages to the apartment.
With Hasenfus’ help, the veteran was able to keep his family in their home through the school year, a third-party inspection denied the landlord’s finding of any damage, and Hasenfus connected the veteran with Easterseals, which covered the family’s moving costs.
“And my very favorite part about this whole story is that we assisted the veteran with using the VA home loan program, and the veteran was able to purchase his first home for his family,” Hasenfus said.
Hasenfus explained that veterans commonly need help with three types of legal problems. The first is discharge upgrades for other-than-honorable discharges, which are needed to secure access to veteran’s benefits, healthcare and employment opportunities. The second common issue is access to benefits like VA’s service-connected disability, GI bill benefits and other state-specific programs. Finally, Hasenfus explained, low-income veterans also experience the same types of legal problems that any person could face, like housing issues, employment matters, bankruptcy and family law issues.
Davis said that LSC’s Veterans Task Force, which was created in 2020, identified the need to improve collaboration in order to best serve veterans’ needs.
“The Veterans Task Force identified the need to break down silos that prevent all members of the community that work with veterans from talking to each other,” said Davis. “It was this team that came up with the idea to develop a clinic model that would center on bringing attorneys, veteran service officers, and community partners together to serve veterans in one place and in a holistic manner.”
A key part of providing holistic services, Davis explained, is committing to providing “warm hand-offs” to other service providers who can address the needs that the legal clinic cannot. This hand-off should go further than a referral, she said, and cultivate a person-to-person connection that doesn’t place the burden on the veteran client to find services.
The toolkit provides practical guidance for planning and operating successful veterans' legal clinics. Based on LSC's clinic model, it includes step-by-step instructions, templates and practical resources for veterans. View the full toolkit at lsc.gov/vets-toolkit.
To hear the rest of the conversation, listen to the full episode of Talk Justice online, on Spotify, YouTube or Apple Podcasts. The podcast is sponsored by LSC’s Leaders Council.