A free legal clinic to aid veterans in obtaining federal benefits and appealing their discharge orders will open at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock's William H. Bowen School of Law next year, officials announced Tuesday.
The state will provide $1.5 million toward the Veterans Legal Services Clinic, split between the rainy day fund and the Attorney General's office. That funding will cover the costs of pro bono services offered by the clinic for five years, according to a Bowen spokeswoman.
Once open in the fall of 2020, the clinic will be staffed by eight students each semester, led by a faculty adviser, according to Theresa Beiner, the dean of the law school.
Gov. Asa Hutchinson, who spoke at a news conference announcing the clinic Tuesday morning, said the clinic will help ease a backlog of pending benefit claims.
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"What the veteran needs many times is for someone just to guide them through a very complicated process," Hutchinson said. "To give them the confidence that attention is being paid to it, that it is not a delay that means everything is lost."
While the state's Department of Veterans Affairs has staff in 74 counties assigned to assist veterans in applying for -- and appealing denials of -- federal VA benefits, agency secretary Col. Nathaniel Todd said Tuesday that the department's county officers are "lay individuals" who do not have professional legal education.
"This is a legal profession. Those things in the field, as the governor said, can be very complex," Todd said. "So this adds tremendous value and expertise to support those 74 county veterans services offices."
The clinic is the brainchild of Bowen alum Simon Kelly, a former sergeant in the Kentucky National Guard who said Tuesday that he chose the law school with the intent of working to establish such a clinic.
Kelly said he hopes the clinic will eventually expand beyond its focus on the benefits and appeals process, and provide criminal defense services to veterans.
"The biggest issue with veterans in the criminal justice system are abuse of narcotics to treat untreated mental illness," Kelly said. "Anytime we can focus on putting veterans into treatment rather than incarcerating them, I'm all for that."
There are 220,000 veterans living in Arkansas, according to Todd. About 30,000 of those veterans live in Pulaski County.
In addition to providing pro bono legal aid in dealing with the VA, Attorney General Leslie Rutledge said the clinic will be a source of referrals to her office and to private attorneys of veterans who face other serious legal issues.
"This legal clinic will be the first line of defense to protect veterans and also alert my office when scam artists are attempting to illegally take advantage of veterans," Rutledge said in a news release.
The Veterans Legal Services Clinic will be the seventh legal services clinic established by the law school, which was established in 1975.
Metro on 08/21/2019