Davis-Wright-Tremaine Announced Their C-123 Veterans Association Pro Bono Legal Representation

DWT Files Suit on Behalf of Vets Who Suffered Post-War Exposure to Agent Orange  In the decade immediately following the Vietnam War, about 1,500 U.S. military reservists flew cargo and medical missions aboard C-123K aircraft—unaware that their planes they worked, ate, and slept in had been contaminated with dioxins from Agent Orange.

Yale School of Law Seeks C-123 Veterans – Read Their Offer of Free Assistance

Yale School of Law, under Dean Michael Wishnie, offers a terrific veterans law clinic that has been instrumental in addressing C-123 veterans' Agent Orange claims. At great expense to the school, they've stood by us for several years as we presented our claims to the VA.

Their C-123 report on presumptive service connection is top-quality legal scholarship and persuasive to any fair-minded VA claims adjudicator. They want to help you. Free. Very good help, and very free. They want to hear from C-123 vets who did not serve in Vietnam - Vietnam vets are already qualified for benefits Yale seeks for the rest of us.

Dean Wishnie and his team also represented a Westover veteran at the Boston VA for a Decision Review Officer hearing...you can imagine the impact as the veterans' representatives were introduced to the VA folks.

Yale wants to keep helping. They are reaching out to all veterans and survivors to discuss certain legal strategies which can apply to us individually as well as our association.

Who: Primary fight crew, ACM, AGE, aerial port, AME, CAMS, life support, flight surgeons...personnel serving between 1972-1982 who had occupational duties on the C-123...that means hands-on, inside the airplane type of duty. Westover, Rickenbacker and Pittsburg units, plus Panama rotation.

The leaders of the C-123 Veterans Association ask each of you to cooperate. Doing so won't change any arrangements you may have for representation with a veterans service organization. Yale's powerful assistance to individuals and to the association is offered pro bono, of course. Other veterans legal clinics and some wonderful private law firms have also stepped up to represent our folks, all as a service in recognition of the sacrifices already made by C-123 veterans and our families.

For us lunkheads who never took Latin, that means free. I looked it up. Trust me. Jokes aside, the results these folks seek are vital and we can't get to our objective without your cooperation. Give them an email at c123.project@yale.edu.

Yale University Seeks C-123 Veterans To Discuss Agent Orange Claims – Westover, Pittsburgh & Rickenbacker

This is the veterans law clinic at Yale University and they want to hear from every single one of us who is a C-123 veteran, who did not serve in Vietnam, and who has or may have an Agent Orange illness. Yale's lead on the project to help us is Mr. Daniel Townsend at daniel.townsend@clinics.yale.edu

Now would be good. And it won't cost anybody anything. Its what they do. Help veterans expertly and for free. Pro bono, in Latin. I've worked my bottom off for four years to get C-123 veterans in this position and now I want you to do this for yourself and for all the rest of us. Aerial Port, AME, maintainers, Life Support and aircrew...get your name and telephone in to me. So far, only 30 names have been collected.

Yale Law = C-123 Veterans' Support - pro bono!

This is the agency which argued Dick Matte's claim (all their helping us is pro bono, of course) through the Boston VA Decision Review Officer and won that recent award. This is the superb law school which challenged VA head-on, explaining in great detail with their report how our Agent Orange exposures are covered under the law. These are the folks, under supervision of the dean of Yale's law school Michael Wishnie, who want hear from you.

Any questions just contact me.  Pilots LtCol John Harris and Col Arch Battista (he's also a retired attorney) and other Westover leaders have worked with these folks in the Dick Matte effort. Now we need your help on Yale's pro bono project involving all of us. Involving YOU!

Email them at daniel.townsend@clinics.yale.edu

Pro Bono Legal Representation Available for C-123 Agent Orange Claims

Don't do it on your own! This is a minefield of traps and disappointments, and there are professionals ready to help veterans prepare and manage disability claims with the Department of Veterans Affairs.

The various service organizations such as VFW, DAV, American Legion and Vietnam Veterans of America are chartered by Congress and offer VA-trained service officers to help any honorably discharged veteran – no membership required and services are both expert and free.

Another resource are America's law firms. Some expert firms specialize in veterans law and represent claims at the various levels of appeal, and for a regulated fee usually about 20% of the award for back-compensation. Many law firms and legal organizations also offer pro bono representation, leaving the veteran responsible only for nominal expenses. Click for a directory of pro bono resources.

Check them out...but don't do a claim on your own!

C-123 Veterans Retain Law Firm of Davis Wright Tremaine in Freedom of Information Struggle

The C-123 Veterans Association has retained the law firm of Davis Wright Tremaine LLP to help us obtain documents denied by the Department of Veterans Affairs and by the US Air Force. Both agencies ignored our Freedom of Information Act Requests, or tried to assert that no such documents exist!

We've been stonewalled for years by both the VA and the AF in our search for C-123 information. Especially withheld from us have been correspondence and studies referred to in the VA's pages where VA denies any connection between our contaminated C-123K aircraft and Agent Orange illnesses.

The Freedom of Information Act requests are meant to gain access to the government's information. Actually...it is OUR information and it is our RIGHT to get it. That RIGHT has been abused by both VA and the USAF, but the team at DWT is challenging the authorities on our behalf. Can you believe it? The VA actually says on their FOIA web page "It is VA's policy to release information to the fullest extent under the law." Actually, the President encourages agencies to freely release materials without forcing citizens to resort to the FOIA requests, but both VA and USAF ignore the President's wishes as requests and abuse us on our FOIA requests.

Stay tuned for news on what we've asked, what's been released, how DWT has helped us, and the impact such official documentation has on our struggle for Agent Orange service connection from the Department of Veterans Affairs!

Request for Legal Assistance re: Agent Orange Law

We need some help. Our C-123 veterans claim exposure to Agent Orange and seek veterans benefits, yet the VA denies claims.

We need expert legal assistance to look at this. While our C-123 veterans are successful when their cased reach the VA's Board of Veterans Appeals, most of us are too old to wait out that five year delay, five years tossed onto the two or more for the claim itself.

As we see the situation, the 1991 Agent Orange law and C.F.R.s spell out that veterans who were exposed outside Vietnam need to prove contamination, prove exposure, and prove they have one of the Agent Orange-preseumptive illnesses.

The law doesn't specify how much contamination, how much or what type exposure...nothing. Thus far we have a large group of scientists and physicians opining that we have been exposed, and a larger group contesting the VA's "unscientific" literature review which they use to justify denying benefits to our veterans. Has the VA set an extra-legal threshold?

So what are the legal issues? What can we point to in justification of our claims. And what remains undone which the law insists we address, if anything, to perfect our case?

We need some help. Any attorneys out there who can give some old vets a bit of pro bono advice? We have an important meeting with the VA on February 28 and need this assistance, however tentative or generalized, before then.