WVU Law Students Will Provide Free Legal Counsel Via New Veterans Assistance Program

William Cox, director of the VA Healthcare System was quoted as saying in the November 7^th statejournal.com article, “WVU College of Law Partners with VA Healthcare System”: “It's a tremendous opportunity to offer another service for veterans who have served our country. The idea was so innovative and creative and it made so much sense.”

It's estimated that through the Veterans Assistance Program, students will be providing assistance to some 23,000 veterans in the northern part of the state. College of Law Dean, Joyce McConnell, was quoted as having said in a WVU news release, per the same article: “We're the first in the U.S. to offer these services under this kind of agreement. We want to bring this to the rest of the country. We want to be a model for law schools and veterans' health care institutions across the country.”


The initiative for the program took three years to develop, with the combined efforts of
Marjorie McDiarmid, a professor with the College of Law, and Stephen Butera, regional council for the VA Healthcare System. McDiarmid created a niche law clinic devoted to veteran's initiatives. In addition, via discussions with Butera, the VA issued a directive in recent months which permitted hospitals to provide space for legal services.

The Louis A. Johnson VA Medical Center, according to information at volunteermatch.org, “exists to serve the veteran through the delivery of timely quality care by staff who demonstrate outstanding customer service, the advancement of health care through research, and the education of tomorrow's health care providers.”

The West Virginia University College of Law is located in Morgantown, West Virginia. Established in 1878, it is the only law school in the state. The West Virginia Law Review was founded in 1894 and is the fourth oldest law school journal in the country.

Since 1914, the law school has been a member of the Association of American Law Schools. It received full-accreditation in 1923 from the American Bar Association in 1923. In addition, since 1925, the school has had a chapter of the Order of the Coif.

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Joyce McConnell is the Dean of West Virginia University College of Law. She is a nationally recognized scholar as well as a national and state leader. She teaches in the areas of property law, with a focus on first-year property, as well as natural resources and land-use planning. She is the Chair-Elect of the Association of American Law Schools Section on Natural Resources and an executive committee member of the Section on Dean for the Law School.