Blog: News & Insights

On January 29, 2016, recently appointed VA Under Secretary for Health, Dr. David Shulkin, held a conference between VHA leaders and finalists in a competition to present pitches for improvement to the Veterans Health Administration.  As identified in the link below , each finalist (I believe all VHA employees) presented “rapid-fire virtual pitches . . . similar to the television show...

Recently I got a call from the child of a client of mine who had just recently passed away. The child was panicky because they could not locate Mom’s Last Will and Testament. Mind you, this particular Mom was a very organized person. Bills were always paid on time; the house was meticulous; papers were looked at, dealt with, and either filed, scanned  or discarded. The Mom had reviewed...

On January 27, 2016, VA Secretary McDonald released a statement regarding the need to reform the appeals process for benefits under Title 38.  His statement can be downloaded at the following link: Statement from VA Secretary Robert McDonald On the Need to Reform the Veterans Appeals Process_January 27 2016 My takeaway: (1) this is the closest the VA has come to acknowledging that the agency...

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...