Family and Veterans Advocacy Clinic awarded $75K grant

Posted by Texas A&M School of Law on Jul 23, 2020 8:54:40 PM

Celestina L. Flores, director of the Family and Veterans Advocacy Clinic of Texas A&M University School of Law, announces the awarding of a $75,000 grant to begin a new program for veterans.

The grant is funded by the Texas Veterans Commission Fund for Veterans’ Assistance. The Fund for Veterans’ Assistance (FVA) provides grants to organizations serving veterans and their families.

Lynn Rodriguez and studentThe one-year grant began early July and will enable clinic staff attorneys Lynn Rodriguez and Karon Rowden to provide pro bono legal assistance to veterans who are residents of Ellis, Navarro and Wise Counties. Because of their residency in these three rural counties, these veterans may not have as much access to pro bono legal assistance as the veterans living in the DFW Metroplex.

The clinic, through the FVA grant, will start conducting outreach efforts and interviews in the counties mentioned when safely allowable due to COVID-19 concerns.

Clinic staff will provide legal assistance to eligible veterans who are at a certain poverty level, in a variety of areas of law, such as family law, (including but not limited to divorce, child custody and support, modification of prior orders, and/or child support enforcements); preparation and drafting of wills and end-of-life documents; landlord / tenant issues; expungements; consumer issues and petitioning for an upgrade of military discharge status.

Clinic attorneys have represented countless veterans in numerous cases for years and are well experienced and trained in these issues, according to Flores.

"We are very happy and excited to be able to extend our efforts in to these counties and to these veterans. We hope to exemplify the Texas A&M Aggie core value of selfless service by providing pro bono help to those who have sacrificed so much for our country and our communities," she says.

Topics: law clinic, faculty and staff, veterans

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Texas A&M School of Law is an American Bar Association-accredited institution located in downtown Fort Worth. In 2013, Texas A&M acquired Texas Wesleyan University School of Law. Since integrating with Texas A&M seven years ago, the law school has sustained a remarkable upward trajectory by dramatically increasing entering class credentials, adding 11 clinics and six global field study destinations, increasing the depth and breadth of its career services, student services, academic support and admissions functions and hiring 28 new faculty members.

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About Texas A&M University

Texas A&M, established in 1876 as the first public university in Texas, is one of the nation’s largest universities with more than 66,000 students and more than 440,000 living alumni residing in over 150 countries around the world. A tier-one university, Texas A&M holds the rare triple land-, sea- and space-grant designation. Research conducted at Texas A&M represented annual expenditures of more than $905.4 million in fiscal year 2017. Texas A&M’s research creates new knowledge that provides basic, fundamental and applied contributions resulting, in many cases, in economic benefits to the state, nation and world.

About Research at Texas A&M University: As one of the world's leading research institutions, Texas A&M is at the forefront in making significant contributions to scholarship and discovery, including that of science and technology. Research conducted at Texas A&M represented annual expenditures of more than $905.4 million in fiscal year 2017. Texas A&M ranked in the top 20 of the National Science Foundation’s Higher Education Research and Development survey (2016), based on expenditures of more than $892.7 million in fiscal year 2016. Texas A&M’s research creates new knowledge that provides basic, fundamental and applied contributions resulting, in many cases, in economic benefits to the state, nation and world. To learn more, visit http://research.tamu.edu.