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Austin Bar Salutes Our Veterans
Austin Bar Salutes Our Veterans
VETERANS DAY PARADE
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The Austin Bar Association’s Community Engagement Committee invites you to march with them in the Austin Veterans Day Parade on Monday, Nov. 11, 2019. All Austin Bar members, especially those who are veterans or who work or volunteer with veterans, are invited to join the parade and show their support for our vets.
Look for Community Engagement Committee Chair Blair Dancy near the bat sculpture located at Barton Springs Road and South Congress between 8:30 and 9 a.m. The parade begins at 9:30 a.m. at the Ann Richards Bridge on Congress Avenue and will proceed up Congress Avenue to the Capitol Building. A memorial ceremony will begin at 10:30 a.m. on the South Steps of the Capitol and will conclude at noon. For more information, contact Blair Dancy at bdancy@ cstrial.com.
Austin Bar members showed their support for veterans at the 2018 Veterans Day Parade.
AUSTIN BAR VETERANS ASSISTANCE PROGRAMS
In addition to monthly Free Legal Advice Clinics for Veterans, the Austin Bar also provides free legal advice over the phone to eligible veterans in Travis and surrounding counties to assist them with minor legal issues. Applicants must complete an intake to see if they qualify for these services. These programs are funded by the Texas Access to Justice Foundation and the Austin Bar Foundation.
Douglas Lawrence is the managing director of the Veterans Legal Assistance Programs for the Austin Bar. Lawrence has made a career in public service, representing the homeless in all manner of civil and criminal cases when he began his career in Cleveland, Ohio. After moving to Texas, he worked at non-profit agencies representing children along with the poor and the elderly. For the past 10 years, he was the lead attorney with Volunteer Legal Services, where he supervised countless legal clinics, helping low-income families with a broad range of legal issues.
According to Lawrence, “We will go where the veterans are. We’ll set up clinics, give advice and take cases. We will meet face-to-face with every veteran who needs legal assistance. We’ll do whatever we can to help.”
HOW CAN ATTORNEYS HELP?
The Veterans Assistance Programs consist of free legal advice clinics and pro bono representation. There is a waitlist of veterans seeking legal assistance. continued on page 7
The programs cannot be successful without the help of attorney volunteers. If you would like to volunteer, please contact Lawrence at doug@austinbar.org.
PRO BONO SERVICES
The Austin Bar provides limited pro bono services for veterans. However, we are unable to offer these services without the help of attorney volunteers.
FREE LEGAL ADVICE CLINICS
The Austin Bar Foundation has been sponsoring these clinics in Travis County for more than five years. Approximately 2,565 veterans have received assistance at the clinics since they began. On average, Austin Bar attorneys assist 45 veterans at each clinic. While the veteran population has decreased on a national level, Texas has seen an increase. There are over 130,000 veterans in Travis and the surrounding counties. The goal of the clinics is to provide high-quality legal assistance to low-income veterans and their families to remove the barriers that keep veterans at or below the poverty level.
Veterans seeking legal advice do not have to make an appointment or reservation to attend the clinics. Attorney volunteers provide 10 to 15 minutes of brief legal advice. Veterans most often seek legal advice in the following areas: divorce, child support, custody, consumer, contracts, criminal, wills, estate planning, guardianship, probate, housing, landlord/tenant, and bankruptcy.
Monthly legal advice clinics are held at the Austin VA Outpatient Clinic located at 7901 Metropolis Drive from 1:30 to 4 p.m. The next clinics are scheduled on Tues. Nov. 12 and Mon. Dec. 9, 2019. Occasionally, legal advice clinics are also held in surrounding counties. Watch the weekly e-newsletter, Bar Code, for announcements about future clinic dates and locations.
HOW CAN PARALEGALS & LAW STUDENTS HELP?
The Austin Bar receives hundreds of calls from veterans seeking legal assistance. Paralegals and law students interested in honing their intake skills are encouraged to volunteer. Help is also needed with managing and updating our database. Interested paralegals and law students may send their resumes to Lawrence at doug@austinbar.org.
