Students work with veterans who want to upgrade their military discharge status to be eligible for benefits from the Veterans Administration. Review requests typically involve minor blemishes – or the timing of them – on military records. Students help veterans explain the basis for their requests for review and to navigate the administrative process.
“The Veterans Discharge Upgrade Review Clinic is a way for students to give back to the veterans community while gaining crucial hands-on, client interaction experience they will carry with them after graduating from law school.”
– Brad Steffen, clinic director and former Air Force Judge Advocate General Corps prosecutor and defense attorney
While working with military veterans in the context of a military review process, students learn more broadly about interaction with government agencies and regulations, and have opportunities to develop skills for interviewing and working with clients.
All students may participate in the clinic, regardless of class year or full-time or part-time enrollment. Because each student is largely responsible for his or her own work schedule, the clinic is a particularly flexible opportunity for obtaining pro bono graduation credit.
Clinic Director Brad Steffen was a prosecutor and defense attorney in the Air Force Judge Advocate General Corps. He practices in Kentucky and Ohio in the Cincinnati firm of Dinsmore & Shohl, with a focus in civil litigation, white collar criminal defense and general-counsel business matters. He graduated from Chase in 2015.
Professor John Bickers, who teaches Constitutional Law and other courses at Chase, is faculty adviser to the clinic. Prior to joining the Chase faculty, he taught law courses at the United States Military Academy at West Point and was a lawyer and law department manager in the Army Judge Advocate General Corps.
