TVC Legal Scholars Program

We operate The Veterans Consortium Legal Scholars Program as part of our mission to encourage and facilitate pro bono representation by law school, clinical and other appropriate programs. This effort introduces law students to the federal Veterans Pro Bono Program and exposes them to careers serving veterans and their families, caregivers and survivors. This program is comprised of several TVC projects including:

Upcoming Opportunities

Jeffery Stonerock Externship  - Deadline: Passed

David Isbell Internship - Deadline: February 28, 2023

Law School Clinic Partners

A number of law school clinical programs across the country teach law students about veterans law and how to handle VA benefit claims and appeals. Part of the mission of The Veterans Consortium Pro Bono Program is to encourage and facilitate pro bono representation of veterans, their loved ones, and their surviving family members through these law school clinical programs. We support these law clinic partners by training clinical professors and participating law students, by providing them with screened pro bono cases from The Veterans Consortium Pro Bono Program, plus mentoring support.

We are happy to work with law school clinics who are interested in taking an appeals case as a Program Partner. The Veterans Consortium requires participating law clinics to have at least one supervising professor/advisor throughout a case. In most instances we require the professor/advisor who runs the clinical program be trained by The Veterans Consortium and to have handled at least one veterans appeal through the Pro Bono Program. The training requirement may be waived in certain cases.

The training provided by The Veterans Consortium comes through a free day-long seminar which teaches attendees about veterans law and effective representation at the U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims (CAVC).

Any lawyer/professor who attends this training must agree to represent a veteran (or a veteran’s loved one or surviving family member) before the CAVC. Cases can take up to a year to complete and take about 60 hours if they do not require participation in an oral argument. Only about 1% of cases go to oral argument.

Any clinical advisor wishing to become involved in a clinical program or needing further information can contact Courtney Smith at courtney.smith@vetsprobono.org. If you’d like your law clinic or program to be added to our group of schools (below), please send a description of your clinic’s mission and contact information to Courtney Smith at the above email address. Additionally, if you are considering starting a veterans law school clinic or service program, please contact us so we can assist you.