M-VETS Expands into American Legion Post 139
Mason Veterans and Servicemembers Legal Clinic (M-VETS) is expanding its pro bono legal services to assist a greater number of veterans and servicemembers by adding an additional staff attorney to its current team of two staff attorneys.
Established in 2004, M-VETS enables servicemembers, veterans and dependents to consult with Mason law students who help with a wide variety of legal matters. Since its inception, the clinic has assisted hundreds of clients from all five branches of the armed services with the most comprehensive legal representation of any veterans’ clinic in the Commonwealth of Virginia. The clinic was the first of its kind in American legal education. M-VETS is the only clinic situated in northern Virginia and the only clinic equipped to offer representation for civil litigation matters as well as VA benefits and military entitlement matters.
Services currently include applications for discharge upgrades; representation before medical and physical evaluation boards; appeals of denied Veterans Affairs disability compensation claims; appeals to the Board of Veterans Appeals and the Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims; and representation in the negotiation and litigation of consumer protection, contract, family law, landlord-tenant and expungement cases in the Virginia courts, as well as drafting simple wills and powers of attorney.
Given the rapidly growing size of Virginia’s veteran population and the increasingly diverse veteran needs within Virginia, expansion of M-VETS is becoming more and more necessary. With the current staffing levels, M-VETS can only assist a small fraction of those in need. More veterans are asking for assistance with criminal defense cases, employment cases and other civil matters that M-VETS currently does not have the capacity nor expertise to manage. Too many times, these types of cases are turned away from the clinic, with veterans left to find representation elsewhere.
An expansion of M-VETS to three full time staff attorneys will allow the clinic to supervise as many as seventeen students per semester—a forty-one percent increase. The value of these services to the veteran community has been projected at $1.5 million over three years. With the third attorney specializing in criminal defense, employment and other civil matters, the type and range of services would also be expanded, allowing veterans and servicemembers to explain their legal issues once to a full-service clinic. M-VETS would also be able to decrease their denials in these areas to zero.
With the addition of a third staff attorney, M-VETS will be able to assist veteran and servicemember clients with a greater range of services and reduce denials in the areas of criminal defense and employment law to zero. Even without any formal advertising in these areas, M-VETS made 316 denials in 2021 alone. With the growth of the veteran population in Virginia, this number is only likely to increase in future years without this much needed expansion.
In addition to its pedagogical and access to justice objectives, M-VETS is also engaged in community outreach programs and developing strategic partnerships to further access to justice for its clients. M-VETS was a driving force in the development and oversight of the Fairfax Veterans Treatment Docket, the first court-supervised comprehensive veterans treatment program in the Commonwealth of Virginia; M-VETS has a partnership with the Virginia Department of Veterans Services (VDVS) to provide assistance with VDVS cases before the Board of Veterans Appeals and collaboration with the George Mason Center for Psychological Services to provide M-VETS clients with affordable access to psychological evaluation services; and M-VETS latest partnership is with the Arlington Partnership for Affordable Housing, to develop veteran-specific affordable housing, along with a dedicated M-VETS office, veterans lounge and veteran workforce development programs.
M-VETS has made a lasting impact on the landscape of American legal clinical education and in the military community at large. First in its field to help the new wave of veterans and servicemembers at their time of legal need, M-VETS is an innovative clinic in the Pentagon’s backyard. M-VETS continues to seek partnerships and support of the mission in which it remains a legal trailblazer.
To learn more and become a sponsor of M-VETS, click here.