Robert Barrett is a self-proclaimed thorn in the side of the Army. The Hunton & Williams associate and Iraq war veteran has been working for the past two years with the National Veterans Legal Services Program to help veterans of past wars, as well as returning veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan, obtain all of the disability benefits that they are entitled to receive.
“I love the Army, but it’s a bureaucratic organization that you have to hit with a big stick to institute change,” says Barrett, who graduated from West Point in 1999 and was with the Marines when they invaded Iraq in 2003. “I’m trying to make it a better service organization.”
To that end, Barrett has been heading a Hunton initiative to represent veterans who are appealing their disability ratings with the Board of Veteran Appeals. The NVLSP vets the candidates to make sure that they have meritorious claims and then passes their case on to a participating law firm. (Other firms that have worked with the organization include Sidley Austin, Arnold & Porter, and McDermott Will & Emery.) Barrett says Hunton dedicated 2,200 hours to this project in 2008, with 55 lawyers scattered across the firm’s offices bringing 18 cases before the board.
