The mass shooting that left three dead and sixteen injured this year at Fort Hood is a stark reminder of the challenges and difficulties facing our service men and women. Within days of the tragedy, I attended two conferences in Washington, D.C. to discuss how the legal community may work to serve veterans. One was hosted by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and the other by the Puller Clinic at William & Mary Law School.
At both, lawyers, law students, law school deans and professors, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs leaders and mental health experts discussed how the legal community can collaborate to meet the pressing medical and legal needs of the women and men who served and continue to serve our country. I left these conferences ready to change my state of California for the better by closely collaborating with others in the region and state to serve the legal needs of our state’s nearly two million veterans.
