From service to support
Veterans Law Practicum delivers results across Western New York
In its first two years alone, UB School of Law’s Veterans Law Practicum has already transformed lives. The program has secured more than $300,000 in favorable outcomes for veterans and surviving spouses—clients whose stories stay with the students who advocate for them. “Once students help a veteran or surviving spouse get the benefits they need, that service becomes addictive,” says Prof. David Coombs, who directs the practicum.
The practicum’s work reflects the power of hands-on legal training paired with public service. Under faculty supervision, an average of four law students each semester gain practical experience advocating for veterans and survivors while helping clients secure benefits that can make a real difference in their lives. The program’s success underscores UB Law’s ongoing commitment to access to justice for veterans and their families across Western New York.
Much of the students’ work is centered on obtaining benefits from the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). Students typically meet with clients, obtain medical and service records, develop their claims, draft submissions and handle administrative advocacy with the VA.
About 40 percent of students in the practicum have a military background, which helps them navigate the VA bureaucracy.
Prof. David Coombs, Director of the Veterans Law Practicum
“Even students with no interest in joining the military usually have a family member who served,” Coombs says, “which often sparks their interest in the practicum.”
Students learn interviewing skills, build relationships with clients, and do a bit of detective work, Coombs says. “They find the evidence, dig up information and connect dots that might not have been connected before. They use that information to argue why a particular benefit is something the veteran or surviving spouse is entitled to receive.”
The results are impressive. The practicum has achieved several meaningful wins for its clients, including the following examples:
- Pension restored and debt erased. The VA cut an elderly veteran’s pension to $611 because of a $23,208 debt. The practicum team requested a waiver offering strong supporting evidence. The VA approved the waiver, clearing the debt and increasing the veteran’s monthly pension to $2,404 with aid and attendance in light of his caretaker expenses.
- Surviving spouse awarded long‑denied benefits. The team secured a pension for a surviving spouse who had experienced homelessness and lived apart from her husband since 1977 due to his alcohol abuse. She received $11,931 in back pay and $974 per month thereafter.
- Statute‑of‑limitations barrier overturned. A surviving spouse’s Survivor Benefit Plan claim had been denied as untimely. The practicum team sought a waiver, and the Assistant Secretary of the Army approved it, granting the spouse $22,318.53 in benefits that would otherwise have been lost.
- Discharge status corrected, dignity restored. The team helped a Marine Corps veteran with an Other Than Honorable discharge tied to a family crisis. After reviewing the team’s submission, the VA deemed the veteran’s service Honorable for VA purposes, making him eligible for disability compensation. He said the decision made him feel “validated” for the first time in decades.
“These cases show how the practicum’s advocacy can directly change people’s lives,” Coombs says.
The practicum program collaborates closely with Western New York’s Veterans One-stop Center, located in Buffalo.
“The Center has given us dedicated space to work out of,” Coombs says. “That partnership not only gives us a permanent physical location for meeting with clients, but it also makes it easier for veterans and their family members to get our help and obtain the benefits and assistance they need. It is a really important bridge between the veteran community and the legal advocacy we provide.”
Coombs, who joined the UB Law faculty in 2023 after a distinguished 21‑year career in the Army’s JAG Corps, is now laying the groundwork for the practicum’s next chapter. His new veterans law course, launching next spring, will be a prerequisite for the practicum, preparing a greater number of students to participate. Upcoming grant support will enable the addition of two adjunct instructors, expanding opportunities for students to learn the art of advocacy on behalf of those who served.