By Andrew Cohen
As a California Court of Appeal justice, Eileen Moore’s busy docket allows for little free time. But when student leaders of Military Veterans at Berkeley Law asked her to keynote their recent symposium, she didn’t hesitate.
“The motto of Vietnam Veterans of America is: ‘Never again will one generation of veterans abandon another,’” says Moore, who served as a combat nurse. “Those veterans asked something of me and I wanted to do it for them.”
The event elevated awareness of legal issues veterans face and how vast they are. Attendees included about 30 Berkeley Law students, 30 alumni, supporters, and friends, and some representatives from the nonprofit Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors, which provides care and resources for those grieving the death of a military or veteran loved one.
“This event was a great opportunity to connect our veteran students with veteran alumni as well as with all of our supporters. It was also an honor to host the Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors,” says 2L Eric Wright, MVBL’s co-director. “Americans join the military because they want to serve a cause greater than themselves and you really saw that intergenerational commitment to service at the event.”
A number of those veterans are involved with MVBL and Legal Obstacles Veterans Encounter (LOVE), one of the school’s 40 Student-Initiated Legal Services Projects.
MVBL strives to help veterans succeed in law school and beyond, promoting community building, career opportunities, and programs highlighting military-related topics in law. LOVE offers wide-ranging pro bono legal assistance to veterans in need, including helping them obtain earned benefits and apply for discharge upgrades, and legal research support for the school’s Veterans Law Practicum. Both student groups also have a notable number of non-veterans.
“I didn’t really know the extent of the veterans community at Berkeley,” says 1L Lulu Mansour, who spent four years in the Marine Corps. “But I knew I wanted to expand admissions outreach to veterans, particularly enlisted ones, and be involved in cultivating support among veterans at Berkeley. During my first week as a 1L, I was met with enthusiasm by the leaders of MVBL and LOVE and immediately welcomed into those communities.”
Mansour is currently the social media manager for LOVE, which can be found on Instagram at @l.o.v.e._ucb, and will co-lead the organization next school year.
A transformative time
While Moore’s Vietnam stint “squelched a lot of my fears of failure,” like many veterans of that war, she didn’t talk about her experience there. More than 20 years later, while a California Superior Court judge, she got invited to speak at a Vietnam Veterans of America event. Walking into the auditorium, she saw three rows of disheveled men wearing tattered fatigues.
“What flashed through my mind was PTSD, homeless, self-medicated,” she says. “After I spoke, those men approached me and each was touching me somewhere — my back, my shoulders, my arms. One stroked his pointer finger over and over the top of my hand. A few had tears in their eyes. That was an epiphany for me. It struck me that these men had absolutely no good memories about Vietnam, except the nurses. From that moment, I’ve been involved with veteran activities of some sort.”
A decade later, when news surfaced of homeless veterans who had served in Iraq, Moore sought to prevent history from repeating itself. By then a California Court of Appeal justice, she successfully urged the state courts’ governing body to form a Veterans and Military Families Subcommittee — which she’s headed since its creation in 2008.
The group reviews legislation, provides education, and assists 48 Veterans Treatment Courts and Diversion courts. Moore also writes a monthly article on a military or veteran issue in the legal newspaper the Daily Journal. Last year, she and former U.S. Defense Secretary and CIA Director Leon Panetta were among 15 people named to the new Veterans Justice Commission, chaired by former Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, which makes recommendations to Congress.
During her symposium keynote, Moore described many legal concerns veterans currently face. She stressed the importance of ensuring PTSD treatment to help avoid incarceration, and how divorced veterans are increasingly told their military service and child custody are incompatible.
“But it’s the relatively minor legal issues that probably do the most harm,” Moore says. “One veteran told me how the VA’s disability payments were late for two months and he couldn’t pay his rent, so he was evicted. After that, other landlords wouldn’t take the chance on renting to him, so he was homeless. Or, even supposedly smaller issues than that, such as traffic citations, along with their mounting late fees, can prevent veterans from getting on their feet.”
Student involvement
Hailing the work of groups like MVBL and LOVE, Moore says law school students are well positioned to prevent injustices — in particular reviewing pending legislation and speaking up against proposed legislation that would harm veterans. When the bill for California’s Penal Code section 1170.91 was being considered in 2014, veterans advocates successfully argued to add vital language.
“It required that sentencing courts consider PTSD and other military maladies as a factor when sentencing a veteran,” Moore explains. “Had that not been caught, some prosecutors and sentencing courts would likely have justified giving higher sentences to veterans by stating they are trained killers. When the statute was enacted, it required sentencing courts to consider such military maladies — but only to lower, not increase a sentence.”
Mansour says she relished hearing from Moore, who has won numerous awards for her judicial work and civic involvement, hailing her commitment to veterans issues. After working as a manpower personnel administrator in the Marines, managing logistics for various deployments and operations, she craved a chance to shape veterans policy more directly.
“I wanted to continue to have an impact through public service, but in a way where my lower enlisted rank wouldn’t preclude me from presenting novel ideas to attack certain challenges,” Mansour says. “That’s why I chose to pursue higher education and a law degree. I also hope to be a person who can provide a bridge for enlisted veterans seeking to pursue higher education.”
Berkeley Law’s student veterans groups provide much-needed resources to those who may not be able to afford an attorney, or simply don’t know how to start the process of service-connected compensation or discharge upgrades. Mansour finds such work “incredibly rewarding” and says the symposium energized her even more.
“Events like this are crucial to nurturing this small but growing intersectional military legal community,” she says. “We have a lot of work to get done to shed light on how we can improve veterans’ livelihoods, from student initiatives at the grassroots level to initiatives like Justice Moore’s at the state and national level.”
