By John Boccacino
Service members injured in active duty are entitled to receive disability benefits and associated medical care from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). But navigating the process can be intimidating.
Thanks to the efforts of the Betty and Michael D. Wohl Veterans Legal Clinic (VLC) within the College of Law, hundreds of area veterans have received their benefits or successfully upgraded their military discharge through the pro bono, student-offered legal services since its founding in 2015.
“Our law students get a chance to get into the legal practice, taking everything they’ve learned and put it into practice working on real cases with real clients with real challenges,” says Beth Kubala, executive director of the Office of Clinical Legal Education, director of the VLC, teaching professor in the College of Law and a U.S. Army veteran. “This is a chance to make a tremendous difference, helping veterans get the VA medical care and the disability benefits they earned.”
Collaborating With Community Service Partners
Veterans are referred to the VLC through organizations like the Onondaga County Veterans Service Agency, which provides a yearly grant to help facilitate the VLC’s efforts, and the Syracuse VA Medical Center. The community partner organizations will often refer veterans who have had their medical claims denied multiple times.
Knowing that new evidence is needed for the VA to consider reopening a claim, Kubala’s students study pages of military documents and health care records to learn everything they can about the tasks the client performed and the injuries or illnesses the veterans suffered while serving that contributed to their current health issues. Comprehensive medical exams are conducted to verify the disabilities being claimed.
“There’s a great collaboration between our teams,” says Annie Mancilla, director of the Onondaga County Veterans Service Agency and an Army veteran. “We know how to handle new and initial claims, and Beth’s team comes in, handles those trickier claims and succeeds at getting intricate cases adjudicated quickly and fairly.”
When she was training as a veteran service officer, Mancilla says veterans service agencies partnering with clinics like the VLC were rare. She hopes the collaborative work on display in Syracuse can inspire other partnerships across the country between university-led student law clinics and veterans service agencies.
“We have to work together to help our veterans,” Mancilla says. “This partnership is so beneficial and we’re at the beginning of something special that is going to continue to grow and have a tremendous impact on our veterans.”
Helping Veterans at Risk for Homelessness
Two years ago, the VLC received a Legal Services for Homeless Veterans (LSV-H) and Veterans-At-Risk for Homelessness Grant, a first-of-its-kind grant opportunity from the VA to fund legal services providers. The VLC is one of just four University-affiliated veterans legal clinics to receive grant money.
Once a week, VLC students go over cases at the Altamont House, a facility that provides transitional housing to veterans facing homelessness. Kubala says this grant has enhanced and solidified the VLC’s partnership with the Syracuse VA while showing how the clinic can help those veterans receive access to health care and their benefits.
“We’re able to make such a significant difference in the lives of so many homeless veterans in and around Syracuse,” Kubala says. “Our students not only gain expertise while strengthening their legal skills, they gain confidence and a better ability to relate to others, and they understand how they can help others with their law degree.”
Using Law Degrees to Do Good
VLC student lawyer Sarah Simon-Patches ’24 took on the case of a veteran who filed his own claim with the VA after suffering medical hardships stemming from his time in the military.
Oftentimes, veterans who file their claims on their own don’t fully understand the criteria and can be denied a portion of their benefits. With a rating of only 20% of his disability benefits, the veteran, a self-employed mechanic from Kansas City, Missouri, was unable to return home to his sons, lost his job and experienced homelessness.
After Simon-Patches combed through the evidence to understand why the veteran fell short of the VA’s criteria, she successfully helped him obtain his full share of benefits and he has been reunited with his family.
“It felt like a huge relief. Here was someone who was experiencing homelessness, unemployed and anxious about his future being separated from his family and came to us for help,” says Simon-Patches, who has a brother and grandfather who served in the military.
“The average veteran, especially our homeless veterans, would not have access to these resources otherwise,” Simon-Patches says. “Our clinic is well-equipped to successfully navigate this system and handle the different needs of our veterans.”
Fighting to Make a Difference
Before Seth Owens enrolled in the College of Law, he spent 13 years as a physical therapist, treating many veterans and active-duty service members. He started in the VLC in the spring of 2023 and realized he was meant to be there.
“You have to bring this mindset to every interaction with a client that I’m going to know everything I can about your case,” says Owens, the LSV-H program manager and a Veterans’ Health and Disability Law Fellow with the VLC. “Professor Kubala’s reputation for having an amazing clinical experience and producing students who do such a high quality of work is well known in the veterans’ community.”
Simon-Patches was so inspired by the impact her work was making, she applied to and was accepted into the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General’s Corps, a government law organization that defends the Army and its soldiers in all military legal matters.
“This work has meant so much to me and this program wouldn’t be what it is without the work that Professor Kubala does,” Simon-Patches says. “We make a difference in the lives of our veterans and we want veterans to know we’re here for them as a resource.”
“It amazes me every day the work that comes out of the clinic,” Kubala says. “I like to think that I inspire the next generation of veteran advocates. There are ways to use a law degree for the greater good, and this is one of those ways.”
