Advocates say it can be incredibly frustrating for military veterans to receive disability benefits for their service-related health problems. The Notre Dame Law School is creating a new veterans law clinic to help.
The law school this week announced the new clinic, opening July 1, will have faculty-supervised law students doing the time-consuming, detailed work that veterans need to get their disability claims approved by the Veterans Administration.
Leading the clinic will be Caleb Stone, who has spent the past four years co-directing a similar clinic at the William & Mary Law School in Williamsburg, Virginia.
Stone says the clinic will focus more on the most difficult disability claims, for psychological conditions like Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, depression and traumatic brain injuries.
"Really anything that has some sort of issue that makes it complex, that makes it where the VA just doesn't see the condition correctly, or isn't applying the law correctly, for one reason or the other," Stone says.
Stone would eventually like the clinic to advocate for veterans nationally and at the policy level, hopefully helping to reduce suicide among veterans.
"It can really be life changing for these veterans. I've had multiple clients who have told me that our work has directly saved their lives."
