Blog: News & Insights

On Wednesday, February 3, 2016, at 6 pm, Rutgers Law School (Camden Campus) is holding a panel discussion on military veterans in the legal profession.  More information about location/time can be found at Rutgers Law Veterans Panel. Every now and then I get a call from a law student interested the JAG Corps/military, so this would be a terrific time to get a frame of reference for how...

On January 21, 2016, the Senate’s Committee on Veterans’ Affairs held a hearing entitled, “VA’s Transformation Strategy: Examining the Plan to Modernize VA.”  You can listen to the hearing at Senate Hearings. For those not snowed in and need of a CliffNotes version, my recommendation is to review pages 9-18 of Secretary McDonald’s twelve points of priority...

Social media sites have become a ubiquitous part of daily life (though I’ve resisted the siren’s call to the best of my ability).  RallyPoint is a social media site specifically oriented towards military/veteran professionals.  I Wiki’d it and apparently Forbes magazine called it “LinkedIn on steroids for members of the military.”  Worth a look for service members...

On December 30, 2015 the Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims (CAVC) issued a precedential decision in Kuppamala v. McDonald (No. 14-2449).  The decision can be accessed at the following link: https://www.uscourts.cavc.gov/documents/Kuppamala14-2449.pdf. The holding of the decision is finite and really only applies to instances where the Department of Veterans Affairs (DVA) has referred a...

The Institute of Medicine was charged by Congress to conduct a follow-up study related to the long-term health effects of Project 112/Project SHAD in 2010.  That study was released this week and can be found at http://iom.nationalacademies.org/Reports/2016/Assessing-Health-Outcomes-Among-Veterans-of-Project-SHAD.aspx.  As the IOM report reflects, DoD has still not de-classified certain...

On December 29, 2015, the Wall Street Journal published an article that the “U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit is considering whether that to allow class actions in the veterans’ court.”   The article can be accessed at Wall Street Journal Article. Although not specifically cited in the article, the appeal before the Fed. Cir. involves the Court of Appeals for...

On December 17, 2015, I blogged about the VA’s intent to propose regulations regarding presumptive conditions for veterans exposed to VOCs at Camp Lejeune.  I noted in a follow-up blog that “news sources quoted VA officials as stating that it may take up to one year for any future proposed regulation to become final.” On December 30, 2015, the Department of Veterans Affairs amended...

On December 17, 2015, we blogged about the VA’s intent to propose regulations regarding presumptive conditions for veterans exposed to VOCs at Camp Lejeune.  Other news sources quoted VA officials as stating that it may take up to one year for any future proposed regulation to become final.  Frankly, this is likely a realistic timeline given the requirements of the Administrative...

When a minor who has disabilities reaches age 18 and is incapacitated, their parent or custodian will typically file for Guardianship. In some cases, the minor has assets under Court control that are held in a guardianship court account through the county Surrogate. These might be assets that were received through a prior personal injury lawsuit award or settlement, or assets that the  minor...

On December 17, 2015, the Department of Veterans Affairs announced an intent to propose regulatory changes to Title 38 that would grant presumptive status for certain conditions related to exposure to volatile organic compounds (VOCs) while stationed at Camp Lejeune, NC.  The noted conditions were the following: (1) Kidney Cancer; (2) Liver Cancer; (3) Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma; (4) Leukemia; (5)...