Each November, the United States observes Veterans Day, which celebrates military veterans of the U.S. Armed Forces and honors their contributions to our country.
An estimated 459,569 veterans live in Illinois representing 4.7% of the state’s population. Veterans face many of the same civil legal issues as the general population but also experience unique challenges related to their service. Unfortunately, veterans do not always receive the legal assistance they need.
According to the U.S. Department of Justice, in 2021 76% of low-income veteran households reported a civil legal problem and low-income veteran households did not receive any or enough legal help for 84% of their substantial civil legal problems.
The Illinois Armed Forces Legal Aid Network (IL-AFLAN) is a network of law schools and legal aid organizations that provide free civil legal services to current and former members of the military and their families with low to moderate incomes.
We spoke with IL-AFLAN Project Director Zach Zarnow about the legal challenges facing this community and how IL-AFLAN and Illinois attorneys can help.
What are the biggest legal challenges facing the veteran community?
On the civil side, veterans in Illinois face many of the same legal challenges as everyone else — family, housing, and consumer issues top the list, which is consistent with what legal aid sees in general.
In addition to those, though, veterans also contact us very frequently seeking help with VA benefits appeals and discharge upgrades, both of which can be critically important to stabilizing healthcare and accessing services.
How does IL-AFLAN support veterans?
IL-AFLAN is the only statewide legal aid network in the country that helps low-income veterans with any and all of their civil legal issues.
We have an attorney staffed hotline, which fields around 1,000 calls per month, but still connects callers to an attorney in about seven minutes. The hotline is our central intake and triage hub, and it solves an enormous number of problems over the phone and via email by providing advice, drafting documents, walking people through court processes, and more.
The “N” in IL-AFLAN stands for network, and our statewide group of 19 organizations takes referrals from the hotline and can assist people with in-court representation via staff attorneys, pro bono volunteers, and clinical law students.
The IL-AFLAN team is amazingly talented and dedicated. The hotline number is 855-452-3526/855-IL-AFLAN.
Why should attorneys consider specializing in veterans’ affairs?
This is an exciting area of law and a fantastic way to give back. While there are many people in Illinois who deserve and need legal help, there are a host of state and federal laws designed to help veterans, which can make being their lawyer exciting, as the way those laws interact with many others afford lawyers advocacy opportunities they might not have serving other clients.
If you want to see what kinds of amazing outcomes are possible, check out the impact section of our website and our latest infographic.
How can attorneys get involved or support your organization?
We are statewide in our efforts and fortunate to partner with Chicago Volunteer Legal Services and the Public Interest Law Initiative, both of which are IL-AFLAN network members and both of which help us recruit, train, and support volunteers.
We have opportunities in and out of Cook County, including some that are virtual. We encourage interested attorneys to check out the “Want to Help?” section of our website for more information on how to volunteer.
Is there anything else you would like to share?
To date, IL-AFLAN has helped well over 27,000 people. This has translated into over $17 million in financial benefits for our clients, over 600 clients where legal work prevented homelessness, and hundreds and hundreds of everyday legal problems getting solved, for free.
I’m proud of our attorneys and partner organizations and it is a real joy to have helped build something like this. Illinois is a special place, IL-AFLAN is a special network, and we’re not slowing down anytime soon.
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