Volume 43, Issue 3

In early November 2015, we stood in a Mankato, Minnesota, courtroom and held our breaths as a jury announced the fate of our client, a man we had come to love. Levi Minissale is a former Marine who never should have served in the military due to severe mental illness, but who did serve in…

Nearly 800,000 veterans and family members every year use Post- 9/11 GI Bill benefits through Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). The GI Bill benefits program is the VA’s largest education- assistance program, covering expenses for military veterans and eligible dependents including tuition, fees, housing, and books. For-profit education accepts billions of dollars annually through the…

Melvin, a Vietnam War veteran, approached the small room tucked at the back of the Army National Guard Armory in Fergus Falls, Minnesota, a town of 13,000 in the northwest of the state. Melvin’s social worker at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) told him to check it out; she heard veterans could request help…

Plenty of written materials exist on the benefits of problem- solving courts and, particularly, veterans treatment courts. The existence of those courts has, at the very least, demonstrated that legal professionals are attuned to the needs of veterans involved in the criminal justice system. And certainly, research conducted by several organizations suggests that specialty courts,…

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” As technology and science advance with increasing speed and scope, courts are tasked with increasingly difficult determinations on admissibility of evidence. Using in-court experts to explain scientific methods has become necessary; however, this necessity carries the risk of tainting judges and juries with unreliable “junk science.” This…

In Kingdomware Technologies, Inc. v. United States, the United States Supreme Court unanimously overturned the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, as well as years of deference to Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) practices, holding that the VA must conduct market research to determine if at least two service-disabled veteran-owned small businesses…