Attorneys are drawn to The Veterans Consortium in many ways, but all are motivated by a desire to do right by our veterans. Jeanine Winfrey, a former Air Force attorney and veteran, first learned about the Veterans Consortium Pro Bono Program through a training seminar presented by the D.C. Bar. 

“Being a veteran helps me to understand what other veterans are going through. I understand how the bureaucracy works and can sift through the evidence.” 

Her first case from The Veterans Consortium was the appeal of Mattie Starks, widow of Army veteran Charles Starks, who had sought service connection in 2003 for a leg condition related to an accident with a ship’s crane during his Army service in the 1960s. Although he maintained that he had been treated by an Army physician at the time of the accident, the VA regional office denied his claim. 

Starks then filed a Notice of Disagreement, reiterating that he had been treated at the local medical unit. He also pointed out that he “was not the custodian” of his medical records, which is where evidence of the injury should have been recorded and maintained.

Starks perfected his appeal in January 2004; in November 2004, the regional office again denied the case—at which time his widow, Mattie Starks, informed VA that her husband had passed away from sepsis on October 16, 2004.

With the help of a family friend, Mrs. Starks filed a claim that same November for dependency and indemnity compensation (DIC), death pension, and accrued benefits. VA turned her down in February 2005. A few months later, Mrs. Starks, again appealed to reopen her DIC claim. Turned down once more, she filed another appeal in early 2006, which again was denied—with the Board claiming that there was no evidence that the sepsis that had killed her husband had begun while he was in the Army, or was related to a service-related injury.

Then in June 2008, The Veterans Consortium accepted Mrs. Starks’ case and matched her with The Veterans Consortium with Ms. Winfrey as her volunteer attorney. She presented evidence indicating a potential link between the injury and the disease that led the U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims to vacate the Board’s decision and remand the case for further evidence and argument. “When you get the case, The Veterans Consortium sends you everything else—the case, regulations, and even the digital media to go on Lexis-Nexis,” Winfrey remembers. 

Since her client lived in South Carolina, Virginia based Winfrey communicated by letter and phone, discussing her case—and her life. “I lent her a lot of pictures with my husband in them,” Mrs. Starks has said of her relationship with Winfrey. “She made me feel like I was human, right off the bat. I could call any time, and she would explain things to me that I did not understand. I felt like I was part of the process.”

In 2009, Winfrey succeeded in getting Mrs. Starks’ case remanded. "I think for me the satisfaction isn’t so much about winning the case but knowing that someone is there to shepherd the veteran along. The military embraces you when you are in, but when you’re out, you have nobody,” Winfrey says. “You [veterans] get shown the door and you hear nothing; you fill out all this paperwork and you hear nothing. It’s important for them to feel someone is working for them who can explain what is going on and make them feel less rejected by their government.”

• Did you receive a “final” decision from the Board?  Learn more about appealing a case to the U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims.

• Is your firm or company interested in helping Veterans?  Become a Pro Bono Partner.