Clinic for Legal Assistance to Servicemembers

In 2004 Professor Joseph Zengerle, at the instigation of George Mason University School of Law, founded the Clinic for Legal Assistance to Servicemembers (CLAS). The mission of CLAS is to provide: (a) active-duty members of the armed forces and their families with free representation in civil cases of clear injustice or in which they could not retain counsel without undue hardship, and (b) law students with practical educational experience, the opportunity to make a patriotic contribution, and encouragement to public service as a habit of mind.

CLAS remains unique in American legal education, while inspiring other law schools to emulate its initiative in forms like a new veterans clinic designed to assist former members of the armed forces, which Professor Zengerle has advised from its inception in 2006 and serves on its advisory board.

Since CLAS opened its doors to clients in 2005, it has received over 400 applications and has represented over fifty clients. They have come from all five armed services, including a number who have been wounded in Iraq, and students have assisted them in litigation, adjudication and negotiation regarding consumer protection, administrative law, family law, bankruptcy, landlord-tenant, contract, military law, estate and entitlement matters in federal and state forums. CLAS has prevailed in five straight appeals for servicemembers under the recently enacted Traumatic Servicemembers Group Life Insurance program. For an example of a CLAS victory in a state trial court, see http://www.law.gmu.edu/news/2008/clas_trial_win.

Seven clinic students were also amici curiae in the only brief from the law-school community in the U.S. Supreme Court that supported, against constitutional attack, the Solomon Amendment, which provides an incentive for law schools to allow on campus recruiters from the military services' Judge Advocate Generals' (JAG) Corps. Professor Zengerle was co-counsel on the brief with Dean Daniel Polsby and Professor Nelson Lund. The Amendment was upheld by a unanimous decision of the Court announced in Chief Justice Roberts' first constitutional opinion (see "Supreme Court Smackdown," http://nytimes.com/2006/03/12/weekinreview/12liptak.html). Over 100 students have enrolled in CLAS, and eight have graduated to join a JAG Corps.

Students are afforded case supervision by Professor Zengerle or private practitioners who volunteer their subject-matter expertise and bar qualifications, and weekly classroom instruction on legal ethics, client interviewing and issues involved in their cases, as well as national-security developments relevant to the client population they serve (CLAS qualifies for the law school's national security concentration). Visiting instructors have included the legal assistance chief of the Coast Guard, the officers in charge of legal assistance at the Army's Ft. Myer and at Marine Corps Base (MCB) Quantico, a former Army JAG School faculty member, the President of the National Institute for Military Justice, the Director of Legal Ethics for the D.C. Bar, attorneys from the U.S. Army Legal Services Agency, and a student from the clinic's first class and current Army JAG officer who served in Iraq as the operational law attorney for Task Force Iron and as aide-de-camp to the commanding General of the First Armored Division.  

CLAS has received written support and recognition from the President of the United States, the U.S. Senators from Virginia and the U.S. Congressman from the law school's Arlington district, the General Counsel of the Department of Defense (DoD), The Judge Advocate General of the Army, the Staff Judge Advocate at MCB Quantico, and all five legal assistance policy chiefs of the armed forces. Professor Zengerle has written essays about CLAS for the National Law Journal, Business Law Today and the Richmond Times-Dispatch, and has received a U.S. Army commendation from the Secretary and Chief of Staff of the Army for the work of CLAS, while CLAS has appeared in articles in the Washington Post, the Legal Times, Stars and Stripes, and the Los Angeles Daily Journal.

CLAS has been financially supported by the law school; Congressional appropriations for DoD; foundations including the Zickler Family Foundation and the Virginia Law Foundation; and numerous individuals. National law firms (e.g., Akin Gump, Dickstein Shapiro, Gibson Dunn, Hogan & Hartson, Jones Day, Kutak Rock, Latham & Watkins, Morgan Lewis, O'Melveny & Myers, Osborn Maledon, Perkins Coie, Pillsbury Winthrop, Sidley Austin, Sonnenschein, Steptoe & Johnson, Troutman Sanders, and WilmerHale) and Virginia law firms (e.g., Mark G. Jenkins, P.C., of McLean; The Carlberg Law Firm of Alexandria; Fiske & Harvey, PLLC, of Alexandria; Keisler & Lee, PLLC, of Fairfax; Locklear & McCormack of Stafford; and Smolen Plevy of Vienna) have contributed funds and/or supervision of students.