A recent $10,000 grant award to the West Virginia University College of Law’s Veterans Advocacy Clinic will aid in its mission to serve the approximately 170,000 veterans in the state, the clinic's director said during a recent interview. [more]
Released 10/28/16 | Tags: Veteran's Benefits
The 10 cents a page that most people are charged to view documents in Pacer, an online database of papers filed by litigants in the US federal courts, doesn’t sound like much. But critics of the setup say this cost is just the beginning. Pacer, which stands for Public Access to Court Electronic Records, is a clunky system that doesn’t allow users to search for court papers by their content or look up filings across the web of district, bankruptcy, and circuit courts that make up the federal judiciary. And there’s little that outside developers can do about it. [more]
Released 10/14/16 | Tags: Class Actions
Veterans throughout the state will benefit from a $10,000 donation to the West Virginia University College of Law from a veterans legal organization based in Washington, DC. [more]
Released 10/11/16 | Tags: Veteran's Benefits
The U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Veterans' Affairs is demanding answers from the Department of Veterans Affairs about the systems and processes in place to prevent people from receiving benefits they are not entitled to after findings from a 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS investigation. NVLSP attorney and veteran Tom Moore is interviewed. [more]
Released 9/21/16 | Tags: Veteran's Benefits
NVLSP attorney and Navy veteran Rick Spataro was interviewed by Legal Talk Network for their podcast on assisting veterans and the legal issues they face, along with Robert Liscord of Pine Tree Legal Assistance. They discuss the daily legal issues facing veterans and how the legal community is making strides in assisting #veterans. [more]
Released 9/19/16 | Tags: Staff, Veteran's Benefits
Ogletree Deakins Nash Smoak & Stewart PC announced Tuesday that it has snagged a former Morgan Lewis & Bockius LLP labor and employment partner to join its Dallas office, expanding the firm's litigation capabilities. Ellen Perlioni, who is joining the firm as an of counsel attorney after more than eight years with Morgan Lewis, told Law360 on Tuesday that it was after a friend from law school approached her with the opportunity that she first considered switching firms and moving to Ogletree Deakins. She's also worked with the National Veterans Legal Services Program doing advocacy work for veterans to receive combat-related special compensation. [more]
Released 8/9/16 | Tags: Supporters
A proposed class of PACER users on Friday urged a D.C. federal court not to toss claims that the federal court filing service is too expensive, arguing the government has misconstrued the complaint as concerning a billing code error, when it’s actually over the price of the service. The non-profit advocacy groups that regularly use PACER and seek to lead the proposed class, the National Veterans Legal Services Program, National Consumer Law Center and Alliance for Justice, pushed back on the federal government’s late June motion to dismiss the complaint by comparing its pricing gripe to that of a customer in a restaurant. [more]
Released 8/1/16 | Tags: Class Actions
A unanimous three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims struck down a Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) regulation that VA had been relying upon since 2009 to deny reimbursement requests from veterans who incurred emergency medical care costs outside the VA healthcare system. "This is a major win for veterans, and their families," said Bart Stichman, joint executive director of NVLSP and one of the attorneys in the case. "Often veterans have to seek emergency medical care outside the VA healthcare system, and for years the VA has refused to reimburse these veterans for any of the expenses incurred simply because secondary insurance covered a portion of the medical bill. This practice has violated federal law since at least 2009. The court's ruling means the VA will have to amend the unlawful regulations it should have amended in 2009 and do right by these veterans. It's not just a win for one veteran. Veterans who have pending claims for reimbursement will benefit. Plus, veterans whose reimbursement requests were turned down years ago may now be able to get paid by claiming that the previous denial contained "clear and unmistakable error." [more]
Released 7/17/16 | Tags: Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims, Veteran's Benefits
More than 125,000 veterans who have served since 9/11 are denied access to basic services like health care by the Department of Veterans Affairs, according to a report by the Veterans Legal Clinic at the Legal Services Center of Harvard Law School. The report, “Underserved,” presents new findings about how the VA’s regulations exclude hundreds of thousands of veterans with “bad-paper” discharges, contrary to the text and intent of the 1944 G.I. Bill of Rights, which established the current VA eligibility standard. The clinic issued the report on behalf of two veterans advocacy organizations, Swords to Plowshares and the National Veterans Legal Services Program (NVLSP). “Congress meant for the VA to provide basic services to nearly all the men and women who served in uniform,” said Dana Montalto, an attorney and Liman Fellow in the Veterans Legal Clinic. “Yet, the VA’s regulations have operated to exclude more and more veterans from getting the care and support that they deserve.” [more]
Released 7/12/16 | Tags: Discharge Upgrades
Kingdomware Technologies, a service-disabled, veteran-owned company in Maryland, knew it was right and, despite getting knocked down twice on appeal, took its case for the rule of two to the Supreme Court where it scored a unanimous decision. NVLSP was among several organizations filing amicus briefs in the case. [more]
Released 6/17/16 | Tags: Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS)