A case for veterans
The average week for a typical law school student involves poring over a list of daunting cases and deconstructing complicated arguments. But last week the work of three Harvard Law School (HLS) students included something else: an appearance in federal court. The students, who are part of the School’s Veterans Legal Clinic, stood before the U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims last Wednesday to argue for the rights of their client, a decorated U.S. Army veteran. As part of its annual educational and outreach campaign, a three-judge panel traveled from Washington, D.C., to Harvard’s Ames Courtroom to hear oral arguments in the case of Ausmer v. Shinseki, involving a disabled combat veteran of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. The case involves the rights of deployed service members who also have benefits claims pending at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). “The fact that we have a service member here who was...