Course Description
The Veterans Legal Services Clinic will help veterans and their dependents with claims for benefits from the Department of Veterans Affairs and related benefits. The clinic will help veterans and their dependents overcome legal barriers and reduce delays in accessing life-changing benefits and services.
Athena Title
Veterans Legal Clinic Hours
Non-Traditional Format
Course includes a service-learning project during the semester that either employs skills or knowledge learned in the course or teaches new skills or knowledge related to course objectives. Students will be involved in the planning and implementation of the projects(s) and may spend time outside of the classroom. Students will be engaged in the service-learning component for approximately 50-75% of overall instructional time.
Semester Course Offered
Offered fall, spring and summer
Grading System
S/U (Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory)
Course Objectives
Students will better understand an important social need, administrative advocacy, and collaboration with medical and psychological experts. Students enrolled in the clinic will develop an understanding of procedural and substantive rules applicable to specific types of veterans benefits, the underlying policies that inform benefit availability, and the practical workings of specific VA benefit systems. Students will develop a client-centered understanding of veterans benefits that focuses on the uniqueness of each client, the way that uniqueness impacts the attorney-client relationship, the difficulties in accessing benefits from a client’s point of view, and the impact of services on a veteran’s quality of life. Each student successfully completing the clinic will undergo the training needed for certification to represent veterans before the Department of Veterans Affairs.
Topical Outline
Depending on the needs of active cases, the clinic will provide enrolled students with at least eight of the following core lawyering experiences: 1) client interviewing, 2) case screening, 3) case development, 4) legal research, 5) practice-oriented writing, 6) client counseling, 7) oral presentation or advocacy, 8) written advocacy, 9) negotiation, and 10) reflection.
Syllabus
Public CV