November 18, 2014
Contact: Taylor Cohan (602)340-7235
Print Press Release

In light of our great nation celebrating Veterans Day a week ago from today, the Arizona Legal Foundation would like to highlight our Veterans Legal Help Project and the awesome people who volunteer with this very important cause.

The program began with a website, LawforVeterans.org, that was designed to provide Veterans with helpful information such as listings of legal resources, information on Veteran’s Court, and articles pertaining to legal aid for military personnel. On the website veterans have access to information on several topics, ranging from Social Security to Veteran’s Courts and how they work.

Today, many veterans and their families are in need of legal assistance with filing papers for issues such as family matters (i.e. divorce, child custody, child support), housing issues (both landlord/tenant and foreclosures), obtaining Veterans Benefits, Health Benefits, criminal law, and preparing wills and trusts. The Veterans Legal Help Project seeks to provide these veterans with the legal aid they need not only through the website, but also by connecting them with volunteer attorneys, screened from the AZ Legal Foundation’s Access to Justice Website, who will guide them through the process. A group of approximately 180 of these attorneys have agreed to give free consultation to veterans that meet the 150% poverty guidelines. Often after the consultation, the attorneys will work further with the veteran for free, depending on how detailed the case is.

The Project also includes legal clinics for veterans, sponsored by the Arizona Disabled American Veterans and the Arizona Disabled Veteran Foundation, where attorneys volunteer time to assist veterans on various matters. These clinics are held all around the state every 2-3 months, and the attorneys will volunteer anywhere from a half hour to several hours to drawing up legal documents and offering legal services for veterans at no charge.

General Richard Maxon of the Arizona State Bar is one of the volunteers who has been very instrumental in setting up this Program and the website since its birth approximately one year ago, and we would like to thank him as well as all of the others who have had a part in the growth of this excellent project. To date, the project has served well over 100 veterans with free legal advice in its first year of existence, and we hope to continue to grow the program even more in year two. If you are interested in getting involved with the project, visit the website in this link LawforVeterans.org and learn how you can give back to those who bravely served our country and dedicated a portion of their lives to protecting the freedom that we so often take for granted.