| UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA
JAMES E. ROGERS COLLEGE OF LAW |
NOVEMBER 13, 2024 | | |
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Greetings,
In honor of the Veterans Day holiday this week, we recognize the veterans in our community, including current student Caleb Hayter. We also feature the work of the Veterans Law Advocacy Clinic. Now and throughout the year, thanks to all who have served.
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Until the footnotes,
Marc
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Not Just Legal Support: Veterans Clinic Students Help Veterans with Range of Challenges | |
From left to right: Heather Reed (law student), Dayna Michael (VALC staff attorney), Lori Lewis (VALC assistant director), Maureen Price (VA attorney), Matt Lubisich (law student) | |
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For more than a decade, the Veterans Advocacy Law Clinic has offered free legal support to U.S. military veterans. Under the leadership of Clinical Professor and Director Kristine Huskey, the clinic addresses challenges faced by veterans in transitioning from military to civilian life.
The clinic represents veterans and service members in veteran treatment courts and provides legal assistance to veterans on disability cases and cases involving discharge upgrades and corrections to military records. The clinic also helps veterans through a robust intake and referral program and by engaging in special projects and community outreach.
The Veterans Advocacy Law Clinic has had a productive year with the reinstatement of our pop-up legal clinics at the Tucson VA (Veterans Affairs) and the introduction of the Rural and Tribal Veterans Project.
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Intakes and Referrals
The clinic continued its service of providing telephone intakes and referrals to the many veterans and family members who contacted us requesting legal assistance. In the last year, we fielded 140 inquiries. University of Arizona undergraduate interns Rosie Ezgur and Maricella Rodriguez, as well as clinic law students, helped veterans with their requests, researched and referred veteran-friendly attorneys and non-profit organizations for matters such as family law, employment, landlord/tenant, consumer issues and other civil issues.
Gift Expands Clinic Work
In May 2024, the Clinic received a substantial gift from Philip Morris International, which enabled the Clinic to hire a full-time staff attorney, Dayna Michael (JD ’17, MBA ’22, veteran). Dayna was a law student in the Veterans Clinic for four semesters. We’re so happy to welcome her back!
“I absolutely love the work that the Veterans Advocacy Law Clinic engages in. It was the key experience that led me to working solely with veterans in my legal career. It is wonderful to be back on campus and to be a part of such an amazing clinic,” said Dayna.
The gift also enabled the clinic to recently hire a full-time clinic fellow, Valorie Douglas (’21) to assist in running our new Rural and Tribal Veterans Project. “In the short time I’ve been with the Veterans Advocacy Law Clinic, I’ve seen outstanding service by the law students to veteran clients, and I look forward to ways the clinic may extend its expertise and service to rural and Tribal areas.” You can read all about the gift here.
The Rural and Tribal Veterans (RTV) Project aims to increase access to legal services and VA benefits to veterans living in small towns and rural communities, areas often described as “legal deserts” by the Arizona Supreme Court because of their lack of legal professionals and limited access to the justice system. The RTV Project seeks to not only expand free legal services to veterans in rural and Tribal areas but also to be an active participant in this statewide discussion about better serving this underserved population.
|  | Carissa Patton, Kristine Huskey | |
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Spreading Hope
In late September, Kristine Huskey and Lori Lewis, along with students Brian Fitzsimmons and Carissa Patton, traveled to Holbrook, Arizona to attend the Navajo County Veterans Stand Down. Stand Downs are generally one day events organized to provide supplies and services to veterans, such as food, clothing, health screenings, social services, legal assistance and VA benefits counseling.
Carissa shared, “Something that really stuck out for me was the hope that so many veterans had after speaking with people at various tables. ... I vividly remember one veteran coming in a little later in the morning saying, ‘I got a friend to drive me 70 miles for this.’ He had been struggling getting disability benefits and was living on very little income, in a rural area, with few resources at his disposal—including not having a vehicle. He really wanted to learn how to help his situation, but he didn’t even know where to start, and in a short period, he was able to talk to us, the VA, and the [Arizona Department of Veterans Services]. After that, he and his wife had such big smiles as they were leaving. It seemed like they had gained so much hope over the course of his time there.”
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Thanks to Our Volunteers!
We are lucky to have the assistance of volunteer attorneys and other experts helping to teach and supervise our students:
Michelle Bowen (’15, veteran)
Anna Caruso
Robert McManimon (Eller ’22, veteran)
Megan Hoffman (veteran)
Zachary Gleason
Tom Strong
We are truly grateful to have the support of the entire College of Law community, which helps us to help those who have served.
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Prof. Huskey to Speak on Legal Needs for Native Veterans
American Indians and Alaska Natives (AIAN) have a long tradition of service in the U.S. military. AIAN veterans often experience the negative outcomes of their military service in the form of high rates of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), suicide, “functional disabilities,” housing instability and low employment rates, compared to other veterans. Access to justice for AIAN veterans then can be particularly complex.
Next week, on Monday, Nov. 18, Clinical Professor of Law and Director of the Veterans Advocacy Law Clinic Kristine Huskey will speak at a webinar to address how Native Veterans can be served through cultural sensitivity, effective outreach and supporting legal needs.
Co-hosted by the Tribal Law and Policy Institute and National American Indian Court Judges Association, the American Indian and Alaska Native Veterans: Outreach and Addressing the Legal Needs of Native Veterans webinar is free to attend.
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Meet Veteran/Law Student Caleb Hayter | |
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Caleb Hayter is one of the veterans/law students who has been active with the Veterans Clinic during his time at University of Arizona Law. He told the Letter of the Law about his service, as well as his work with the clinic:
Tell us about your military service.
I enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps right after high school. I was a radio operator: it was my job to make sure Marines could communicate with each other and with their headquarters via radio. The military can’t use things like cell phones in wartime; they need to make sure their communication tools are secure and always available, and that was my job.
What brought you to the University of Arizona Law?
I came to law school because of my military experience. When I was on active duty, I was deployed to the war in Afghanistan, and that was an eye-opening experience in more ways than one. What really affected me, though, was seeing the kind of poverty and violence the Afghani people had to live through. Seeing the looks in the eyes of the kids there broke my heart.
I realized that I wanted to spend my life helping people in situations like that try to live better lives. That realization led me out of the military and to the University of Arizona, from which I graduated with a BS and BA in 2018. While I was an undergraduate, I interned at the Arizona House of Representatives, where I got to see laws being drafted and passed everyday. I learned how the law affects everyone, and how good laws and legal work can be far more impactful than almost anything else in helping people live better lives.
What does being a veteran mean to you?
To be frank, being a veteran to me is a bit of a strange feeling. Inside, I’m very proud of my military service, but it’s not something I think I am very overt about. When I initially joined the military I was pretty gung-ho and patriotic, but my feelings were tempered a bit by my experience in war.
Bluntly speaking, I saw what is sometimes done in America’s name, and it’s not always pretty. I saw the worst of humanity, but also the best, and it’s difficult to accurately describe what that is like.
I think perhaps the best way to sum up what being a veteran means to me is this: in the military and afterwards as a veteran, I learned what is most important in life, and that is kindness, respect and love for one another.
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Describe your involvement in the Veterans Clinic.
I do primarily two things in the Veterans Clinic. First, I represent individual veterans in Tucson City Court who have gotten in trouble with the law and need help. The court has a diversionary program where those veterans can get treatment for any underlying issues that caused their troubles in the first place, and they can also get a support system that provides a feeling of camaraderie. It’s incredibly rewarding to me to see their growth and success.
Second, I also work on administrative issues for veterans, who may need help obtaining VA benefits, navigating military records and regulations, etc. For example, this semester another student and I are representing a veteran in a lawsuit against the military that we expect to file in the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona. Being able to work as a lawyer on a lawsuit in federal court while only a law student is pretty thrilling!
What do you hope to do after law school?
I’d love to stay in Tucson and hopefully work for a law firm here doing something in the realm of business law. I wasn’t born in Tucson, but it has really become home during the time I’ve lived here. I see a lot of economic potential that I want to help the community realize.
I’d also like to continue working on veterans legal issues. Hopefully I can manage my career so that I can serve my community while also doing work for veterans pro bono.
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Do You Have News?
Your success is the college’s success and we want to celebrate with you! If you have landed a new job, received an award or recognition, stepped into a leadership role or have good news in general, let us know.
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The Veterans Advocacy Law Clinic has been providing services to veterans for more than a decade. It has been a great educational experience for all of the students involved, an especially meaningful experience for many and an honor to serve these clients.
The need for veterans legal services vastly exceeds what the clinic can provide. You can see the impact of gifts and external funding, which let us hire more staff, and therefore serve more veterans, and serve them in different ways.
What the clinic does is already powerful. But think of what more we could do, for example with funding to support post-graduate positions where recent graduates work full time for a year on veterans issues. Or where we develop a set of online courses to train veterans and their advocates, both lawyers and non-lawyers, on how to navigate the complex and compelling legal domain that veterans navigate.
We owe a lot. We do a lot. We can always do more.
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