For so long as we have had wars, we have had Veterans; and for so long as we have had Veterans, we have had a need to provide care and services for Veterans. Beginning with our country’s first war, the Revolutionary War, there was a Bureau of Pensions for Veterans. As the country developed, and we had more wars, other entities and agencies emerged to provide a variety of services for Veterans. Eventually, all of the individual organizations were combined into the Veterans’ Administration, which was formed in 1930 under the Hoover Administration. Then, in 1989, it became the Department of Veterans Affairs (commonly referred to as the “VA”). It was signed into law by President Regan and effectuated under President Bush, and in the process was elevated to be a part of the President’s Cabinet. The current Secretary of the VA is Douglas Allen Collins, an Air Force Veteran and lawyer.
The modern day VA provides an array of services, including but not limited to pension and disability benefits, education and training, life insurance and home loans, burials and memorials, and, probably the most well-known service: health care. In that regard, there are many VA Medical Centers and Community Based Outpatient Clinics (CBOCs) throughout the country. Here in Connecticut, we have one VA Medical Center in West Haven, and many VA Clinics around the state, including one located in Orange at the Errera Community Care Center on Edison Road near PEZ.
Also, located inside the clinic in Orange, is a satellite office of the Connecticut Veterans Legal Center (CVLC). The CVLC has a Medical Legal Partnership (MLP) with the VA. The CVLC’s mission is to “empower, support and improve the lives of Connecticut Veterans by providing free legal assistance to help them overcome legal barriers to housing, healthcare, income and recovery.”
A few weeks ago, I had the privilege of meeting with Alison Weir, the Executive Director of the CVLC, at their main office on Church Street in New Haven. Attorney Weir is a retired Lieutenant Colonel of the U.S. Air Force. She shared with me about the important work the CVLC is doing for Connecticut Veterans and that Medical Legal Partnerships provide comprehensive medical and legal services to Veterans through a multi-disciplinary approach.
The CVLC was created in 2009 and offers pro bono (free) legal services to Veterans in a number of areas such as landlord/tenant and housing law, assistance with benefit and disability claim processing and other civil (non-criminal) legal matters. It is a 501(c)(3) and operates as an independent, non-profit law firm.
As the CVLC’s website indicates, it primarily but not exclusively, receives referrals from clinicians, mostly at the VA. Outside clinicians, such as a Veteran’s Primary Care Physician or Mental Health Professional can make a referral, as well. This is tantamount to a referral from a PCP to say a cardiologist or other specialist, but in this case, it is to a lawyer for legal services.
The concept of a Medical Legal Partnership is quite a unique and interesting “holistic” approach, as some say, to providing support to America’s Heroes. The National Library of Medicine defines a Medical Legal Partnership as “a collaboration between a health care organization and a public interest law organization to address health-harming social needs that have civil law remedies” and calls MLPs a “powerful tool for public health and health justice.” After taking a deeper dive into this model, it became abundantly clear that having legal issues certainly can stress a veteran to the point of causing illness or preventing a veteran from healing from an illness, indicating that having a lawyer available as part of a team supporting a Veteran is critical to the Veteran’s overall well-being.
There is another Medical Legal Partnership in Connecticut at Yale, where they place “attorneys on site at health care clinics and hospitals to address the social determinants of health” which according to the CDC are “non-medical factors that affect health outcomes.” There are five generally accepted social determinates of health: (1) education access and quality, (2) health care and quality, (3) neighborhood and built environment, (4) social and community context and (5) economic stability. Sources such as the American Hospital Association and the National Collaborative for Education, indicate that a Medical Legal Partnership is a way to address these elements by incorporating lawyers into health care teams to respond to the legal needs and disparities that impact patient health.
According to the National Center for Medical Legal Partnerships, there are 450 health organizations across 49 states and DC that have established Medical Legal Partnerships.
While, I am not involved in a Medical Legal Partnership, every once in a while, I get the opportunity to help a Veteran in my own private practice. Recently, a Veteran contacted me for Bankruptcy services. In full transparency, it had been a very long time since I had represented a Veteran so I was still under the impression that VA Benefits were counted as income on the Means Test (the test to determine qualification for Chapter 7 Bankruptcy). However, this Veteran told me that he did not believe VA Benefits were considered income for Means Test purposes. After researching the issue, I confirmed that he was correct, and in fact, on August 23, 2019, President Trump signed into law The Honoring American Veterans in Extreme Need (HAVEN) Act which excludes most VA Benefits from the Means Test. First, I was embarrassed and apologized to the Veteran for not knowing this was a law (as I pride myself in knowing a lot about Bankruptcy Law) and secondly, I was elated that such a law existed to assist veterans in receiving Bankruptcy relief.
If you, too, want to help Veterans, please consider supporting the Connecticut Veteran Legal Center’s mission in “The Ride for Our Vets” on June 14, 2025 in Stamford, Connecticut. If you would like to register to participate in “The Ride,” please visit http://www.ctveteranslegal.org/TheRide.

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Byline: Attorney Theresa Rose DeGray is the owner of Consumer Legal Services, LLC, a debt relief agency in Orange helping people file for Bankruptcy relief under the Bankruptcy Code; and she thanks all U.S. Veterans for their service.