George Mason University Antonin Scalia Law School

M-VETS Receives American Bar Association Military Pro Bono Project Outstanding Services Award

The Antonin Scalia Law School Mason Veterans and Servicemembers Legal Clinic (“M-VETS”) recently received the American Bar Association (ABA) Military Pro Bono Project Outstanding Services Award for its services in 2018. The ABA Standing Committee on Legal Assistance for Military Personnel (LAMP) issued this award to M-VETS for their extraordinary pro bono services through the ABA Military Pro Bono Project.

The LAMP committee issues these awards annually to individual attorneys, law firms, and law departments who provided pro bono legal services to active duty servicemembers throughout the year. The award was presented to law firms who represented five or more servicemembers, individual attorneys who represented three or more Servicemembers and attorneys who provided 50 or more hours of pro bono legal services. In 2018, M-VETS was able to provide 2289 hours of pro bono legal work to veterans, servicemembers, and their families. At a private market value of $225/hour M-VETS was able to provide $515,025.00 of pro bono legal assistance during 2018.

Regarding the award, M-VETS Director Tim MacArthur stated: “We are very grateful to the American Bar Association Standing Committee on Legal Assistance for Military Personnel for presenting M-VETS with this award. We are grateful for the opportunity to be able to provide pro bono legal services to this community while also teaching law students how to practice law.” Assistant Director Leigh Winstead added “It is an honor to have the opportunity to provide free legal services to the military community, a service we would not be able to provide as efficiently and effectively without the hard work of our dedicated student advisors. We appreciate the ABA’s recognition of our clinic’s work and look forward to continuing to serve our veterans, servicemembers and their families,” said Winstead.

M-VETS mission is to provide free legal representation to active-duty members of the armed forces, veterans, and their families while offering law students the opportunity to receive supervised, practical legal experience by advocating for those who serve or have served in our United States armed forces. M-VETS provides representation in a variety of matters including Virginia civil litigation matters, uncontested divorces, consumer protection matters, wills and powers of attorney, as well as assisting with matters before the VA and various administrative boards, including discharge upgrades, record corrections, military pay and entitlement matters, and VA disability benefit appeals.