Earlier in 2024, the Huntington VA hospital reached out to Legal Aid of WV (LAWV) with an opportunity to expand services to veterans. As an organization that strives to prioritize serving West Virginia’s veterans, we were excited to create a partnership.

The new partnership comes through a Veterans Administration Legal Services to Veterans (LSV) grant and will fund an attorney and paralegal team at LAWV to provide dedicated services to veterans, experiencing housing or economic instability.

The work will add services for veterans in addition to services currently provided by another veteran and paralegal team out of LAWV’s Clarksburg office. Both projects aim to help veterans at risk. The Clarksburg team is funded by the Supportive Services for Veteran Families grant and provides statewide services to veterans at risk of homelessness by removing barriers to income, employment, and stability after a partner agency refers those veterans for our legal help.

“These new veterans’ services will be a nice complement to what our current attorney, Phillip Pham, is already doing,” says LAWV Managing Attorney for Grants and Training Elizabeth Wehner. “We are developing a medical-legal partnership, and plan to have our new attorney provide on-site services at the VA clinics on 9^th Street in Huntington, in South Charleston, and in Lenore.  The VA is interested in adding and improving services for rural veterans and for women veterans.”

LAWV’s veterans’ services are supported across the organization as well. Even if a designated veterans attorney cannot take on a case, other Legal Aid attorneys will often take on the case.

The four VA hospitals in West Virginia are invaluable partners in the effort as well and often refer veterans to LAWV attorneys to get appropriate legal help. In particular, the hospitals’ social workers are excellent at identifying veterans who are experiencing legal issues that threaten their circumstances, and they work together with LAWV staff to find help.

“I’m hopeful that Legal Aid is a piece in the puzzle that leads veterans to more stability,” says Phillip Pham. “If we can help veterans avoid homelessness, that gives VA social workers more time to find housing or other resources. When we have victories in those kinds of cases, it makes the whole process easier.”

Success Stories

Our veterans’ services routinely cover the full range of legal help offered by Legal Aid of WV, for example:

John came to LAWV receiving VA benefits as his only income to support himself and his three children. His attorney helped him apply for Social Security disability benefits and attended the hearing where the administrative law judge makes the disability determination. After LAWV’s attorney helped John get his disability award, he is now receiving a stable monthly income stream that includes benefits for his family. 

Sarah is an Army veteran from another state who came to West Virginia to escape an extremely violent partner. Because of the situation, she came without any identifying documents, like her birth certificate, and was unable to get a job. Sarah’s attorney at LAWV helped her get documents, which in turn helped her secure a good-paying job and change her name so she can remain safe. She heard from family that her ex was desperately trying to find her, so the name change gave her a sense of security and safety for the future of her new life here.

Jamie is a veteran who was worried about her son’s biological father trying to file for custody after paying no support and being out of the picture for years. Her LAWV attorney helped her current husband adopt her son, providing Jamie with a sense of certainty in their family unit and her child with a legal relationship to the only father he has ever known.