Peter Friedman
Lawyer
Ruling Imagination: Law and Creativity
Support the troops!
Here’s some creativity in law, from my very own University of Detroit Mercy Law School:
Project Salute is a mobile law office which provides free assistance and/or representation to thousands of low-income veterans exclusively on federal benefits issues throughout the United States. As recounted this past February in the Detroit Free Press:
It was April 21 and UDM law students were rolling out a mobile clinic that would travel around metro Detroit to offer veterans free legal help in obtaining federal benefits. “It was 6:12 a.m. That was our first call,” Dean Mark Gordon said. They didn’t stop. A veteran from the West Coast phoned: “He was actually crying. . . . He felt so abandoned and was so pleased that someone was listening,” Gordon said. Now, less than a year after its debut, the service is going on a national tour. The clinic — for now in a converted Winnebago — heads out Thursday for an American Legion post in San Antonio. As it tours the country, it will be staffed by UDM students and faculty. UDM staff also will work with local attorneys in each city who will offer pro bono work. UDM’s original van will continue to tour metro Detroit, Gordon said.
The media coverage continues unabated. You can watch some of it here. GM has donated a wheelchair-accessible, top-of-the-line 2008 Winnebago Outlook 31C to the project. Detroit Mercy law students and volunteer lawyers work out of the mobile law office, not only helping vets get their deserved government benefits, but also training lawyers in every locality they visit on the ins and outs of the work so that it will continue even after Project Salute departs. Here are the links to several news telecasts from the days Project Salute was in Houston:
