Veterans Legal Assistance Clinic Resource Guide  

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Clinic Binder

1. Veterans Legal Assistance Clinic (VLAC) Forms
2. San Diego Volunteer Lawyer Program (SDVLP) Referrals
3. Practical Training of Law Students (PTLS) Rules
4. California Rules of Professional Conduct (CRPC) Rules
5. Discharge Upgrades
6. Expungement
7. Social Security Income/Social Security Disability Insurance (SSI/SSDI)
8. Landlord/Tenant
9. Veterans Benefits
10. Food Stamps
11. Medi-Cal/County Medical Services (CMS)
12. Dissolution
13. Child Support
14. Credit/Debt
15. Estate Planning

Welcome to TJSL's Research Guide for the Veteran's Legal Assistance Clinic

Here you will find information about resources at the TJSL Library that can help you with your work at the Veteran's Legal Assistance Clinic.

• The Home Page consists of a Table of contents to help you navigate the guide and provides information about the course and the professor.
• The Clinic Binder tab contains pdfs of the contents of the print binder.
• Each subsequent tab maps a section in the Clinic Binder and provides sources to supplement the information found in the clinic binder such as:
  • Sources of practical how-to information provided by government agencies and legal aid organizations
  • Legal Commentary and Analysis
    • eg. Relevant sections of Practice Guides available to you on Lexis or Westlaw
  • Links to relevant laws

Writers and contributers :  Catherine Deane, Hadas Livnat, June MacLeod 

• Students provide actual legal representation to clients of Veterans Village of San Diego under the supervision of the professor.
• Veterans Village provides housing, substance abuse and mental health counseling, and job training to struggling veterans.
• The actual composition of students' caseloads will be determined by client need, however, it is anticipated that case work is likely to be concentrated in the areas of family, consumer, and administrative law.
• Students will be required to spend approximately 20 hours per week on their case work, and will receive four credits for this work.
• The fieldwork component of the course will be graded on an honors/credit/low pass/no credit basis.
• In addition to the clinic's fieldwork component, there will be a required two credit classroom component that will meet once per week for two hours. This will be similar to a traditional law school class, with required reading and other assignments, and classroom discussion of the assigned materials.
• Additionally, however, the classroom component will devote significant time to discussion of students' clinic cases, and the substantive areas of law that govern the cases.
• The classroom component will be graded according to the school's numerical grading scale, with the grade to be based on the classroom exercises and on a final take-home examination.
• Due to the nature of the course, grading for this course will be non-anonymous.
• Students registering for the clinic will be asked to complete a 1 page statement of interest and relevant experience.
• In the event that the clinic is oversubscribed, this statement will be considered in making admission decisions, in addition to students' academic standing and proximity to graduation.