Notre Dame News | Notre Dame News | News

Notre Dame Law 91��Ƶ launches new Veterans Law Clinic

2025-06-02T10:00:00-04:00

Notre Dame Law 91��Ƶ is launching a new Veterans Law Clinic, dedicated to providing free legal assistance to U.S. military veterans in matters such as disability claims and appeals.

The clinic will begin operation in the fall of this year, and it will offer critical support to veterans while creating opportunities for law students to gain hands-on experience advocating for those who have served the nation.

"Our new Veterans Law Clinic is essential for two reasons: it provides students with the opportunity to apply what they're learning in the classroom to real-world cases, and it serves veterans who need help navigating the complexities of the disability benefits system,” said G. Marcus Cole, the Joseph A. Matson Dean and Professor of Law. “At Notre Dame Law 91��Ƶ, we firmly believe that anyone who has served our country deserves the benefits they've earned, and as Notre Dame Lawyers, we have a special obligation to ensure veterans receive those benefits."

The Veterans Law Clinic will initially focus on helping veterans obtain disability compensation from the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), a process that requires proving both service connection and the severity of a veteran’s medical condition. The clinic will handle initial claims and appeals at all levels—from local regional offices to the Board of Veterans’ Appeals and the federal Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims.

ND Law professor Caleb Stone

The new clinic will be led by Professor Caleb Stone, an experienced veterans’ lawyer and advocate, who will join Notre Dame Law 91��Ƶ from William & Mary Law 91��Ƶ on July 1.

Under his direction, the clinic will work closely with veterans to establish service connections for medical conditions and advocate for appropriate disability ratings from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

“This is about proving that a disability or a condition is somehow related to a veteran’s military service,” said Stone. “Once we’ve proved that a disability is service connected, we will advocate for the veteran to prove to the Department of Veterans Affairs how severe that disability or medical condition is.”

The clinic will operate on a pro bono basis, offering legal services typically unavailable for free, especially during the initial phases of the complex VA process, where legal representation for pay is often restricted. Initially, the clinic will focus on helping local and Indiana veterans—particularly underserved populations—while establishing relationships with VA medical centers and veterans service organizations.

"By offering these services free of charge, the clinic helps veterans avoid the costly fees associated with private legal counsel, providing life-changing support that can mean the difference between poverty and dignity," said Stone.

Notre Dame Law students will play a central role in the Veterans Law Clinic, leading individual cases from start to finish. They will conduct client interviews, legal research, document review, and brief writing, all under the guidance of licensed attorneys. In the clinic’s early stages, students will also help shape its direction, contributing to outreach and operational strategy.

The idea for the Veterans Law Clinic was originally sparked by two Notre Dame Law students, Garrett Hofmann and Mary Pat Peterson. Each had independently discussed the need for such a clinic with Professor Bob Jones, dean of experiential learning, and discovered that the Law 91��Ƶ was already beginning to develop plans for a clinic to serve veterans. The students then connected, collaborated, and ultimately met with Dean Cole, helping to lay the foundation for what would become the Law 91��Ƶ’s newest clinic.

Hofmann was also instrumental in organizing a symposium “What Do We Owe Our Veterans?” earlier this year, which explored many of the legal issues surrounding veterans and helped build momentum for the clinic’s creation.

Beyond casework, the clinic will engage in policy initiatives and community outreach, with a particular focus on the niche area of litigating pre-separation medical discharge cases—advocating for service members facing medical separation to be properly medically retired in order to receive their long-term benefits.

The new Veterans Law Clinic—Notre Dame Law 91��Ƶ’s eighth clinic—provides students with the opportunity to serve veterans by offering direct legal services under the close supervision of a licensed attorney. This hands-on experience not only helps students develop essential legal skills through real-world practice, but it also reinforces Notre Dame Law 91��Ƶ’s Catholic mission and its commitment to educating “a different kind of lawyer” dedicated to service, ethics, and social responsibility.

The Veterans Law Clinic also continues the University of Notre Dame’s enduring commitment to supporting those who have sacrificed for the country, ensuring veterans have access to the legal assistance they need.

Notre Dame Law 91��Ƶ clinic to be named the Lindsay and Matt Moroun Religious Liberty Clinic

2024-07-18T13:23:00-04:00

From left: Notre Dame President Rev. Robert A. Dowd, C.S.C., Professor Stephanie Barclay, Matt and Lindsay Moroun, and Dean G. Marcus Cole

Notre Dame Law 91��Ƶ announced July 10 that its Religious Liberty Clinic will now be named the Lindsay and Matt Moroun Religious Liberty Clinic. The announcement was made during the fourth annual Notre Dame Religious Liberty Summit, which brings together the world’s leading defenders of religious liberty for conversation among clergy, scholars, politicians and advocates.

Notre Dame Law 91��Ƶ’s Religious Liberty Clinic was established in 2020 upon a foundational gift from Matt and Lindsay Moroun. Less than five years after its inception, the clinic became one of the largest academic institutions in the world dedicated to promoting and defending religious freedom. The clinic has represented individuals and organizations from diverse faith traditions, with a mission to protect the constitutional right to believe and practice religion freely.

“Without the courage and confidence of Lindsay and Matt Moroun to lead the conversation regarding religious freedom, we could not have come together to begin and continue this important work,” said G. Marcus Cole, the Joseph A. Matson Dean of Notre Dame Law 91��Ƶ and founder of the Notre Dame Law 91��Ƶ Religious Liberty Initiative. “The Moroun family’s ability to see the vision of what is possible, with faith as the activating principle, is the cornerstone of all that we have accomplished, and we are deeply grateful to them.”

The Moroun family’s generosity ensures that this rich tradition of scholarship and practice can continue. Matt and Lindsay Moroun are passionate about the fight for religious freedom. They believe that Notre Dame Law 91��Ƶ is the best place to champion religious freedom across the globe.

Lindsay and Matt Moroun deliver remarks at the fourth annual Notre Dame Religious Liberty Summit Gala.

“As a Catholic university, Notre Dame has from its founding proven that faith is not only compatible with a free society and the open pursuit of truth, it is necessary to their fulfillment,” said Lindsay and Matt Moroun. “That is why Notre Dame Law 91��Ƶ is the ideal home for an initiative that prepares its students to be fearless defenders of every person’s God-given right to live their lives according to their beliefs. We are thrilled to support this mission, and to ensure that it can continue as long as necessary.”

Under the guidance of Law 91��Ƶ faculty and staff, student fellows at the clinic work on a variety of legal matters to promote religious freedom, domestically and globally. For example, over the past three years, the clinic has filed numerous briefs and argued before a federal appellate court in support of the Apache people in Apache Stronghold v. United States, a case seeking to protect their sacred land and religious traditions.

In other cases, Notre Dame students have represented U.S. immigrants seeking asylum from religious persecution, advocated for religious ministries’ freedom to serve communities in need, worked alongside government officials to advance religious freedom issues in Nepal and fought to protect religious exercise in prisons.

Notre Dame President Rev. Robert A. Dowd, C.S.C., blesses the newly renamed Lindsay and Matt Moroun Religious Liberty Clinic.

“The students, faculty and staff in the Religious Liberty Clinic have made incredible strides for religious freedom in the last four years,” said John Meiser, director of the Lindsay and Matt Moroun Religious Liberty Clinic. “I am deeply grateful to the Moroun family, whose generosity has enabled us to give our students unparalleled opportunities to serve people in need and to participate in this critical work to protect our most foundational freedom.”

In addition to their commitment to the Law 91��Ƶ, Lindsay and Matt Moroun serve on the Campaign Cabinet, devoting their time to be of service to the University in furtherance of the strategic framework and University priorities during the For Good Initiative. In conjunction with their profound Catholic faith, the Morouns are devoted to their hometown of Detroit and its revitalization, making an impact through business practices that improve the lives of locals as well as unassuming, quiet acts of philanthropy.

Originally published by Notre Dame Law 91��Ƶ at law.nd.edu on July 12.

Notre Dame Law 91��Ƶ holds first Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service

2022-01-19T09:35:00-05:00

The University of Notre Dame announced last fall that, for the first time, Martin Luther King Jr. Day would be a holiday for students, faculty and staff.

With no classes scheduled for the day, all members of the community would be free to honor King’s legacy in their own way. Notre Dame Law 91��Ƶ took the opportunity to start a new tradition by giving law students, faculty and staff the option of participating in a variety of service projects throughout the day.

On Monday (Jan. 17), Notre Dame Law 91��Ƶ held its first Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service to celebrate the spirit of the civil rights leader’s unwavering fight for racial and social justice.

More than 130 law students, faculty and staff members signed up to spend part of the day volunteering for local nonprofit organizations.

Some of the projects for those organizations were completed by teams inside the Law 91��Ƶ buildings, while other volunteers traveled out in the South Bend community to serve the nonprofits on site.

Making fleece blankets for Ronald McDonald House. Photo by Matt Cashore/University of Notre Dame

Assembling food packages for Pack Away Hunger. Photo by Matt Cashore/University of Notre Dame

“I am so proud of our students, faculty and staff for their passionate engagement in our inaugural Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service,” said G. Marcus Cole, the Joseph A. Matson Dean and Professor of Law at Notre Dame Law 91��Ƶ. “Over 100 students and more than 30 faculty and staff gave of themselves to serve those within the South Bend community. These people give meaning to our ideal of ‘a different kind of lawyer.’”

In one of the projects at the Law 91��Ƶ, volunteers made no-sew fleece blankets for Ronald McDonald House Charities of Michiana.

Working at tables in Eck Commons, the group turned 200 yards of fleece into 50 warm, colorful blankets for guests of the Ronald McDonald House in downtown South Bend.

Putting together care kits for Logan Center. Photo by Matt Cashore/University of Notre Dame

At the other end of Eck Commons, volunteers set up an assembly line to package 5,000 meals for Pack Away Hunger.

Also in the Law 91��Ƶ, volunteers assembled 45 care kits for Logan Center clients. The kits included art supplies and games as well as toiletries and other personal care items.

Off campus, volunteers assembled tables and deconstructed wood pallets at Corvilla Inc.’s new storefront location, delivered meals to clients of REAL Services Inc., organized the food pantry at St. Margaret's House, did some deep cleaning at St. Peter Claver Catholic Worker House, stocked the food pantry and assembled boxes of food for deliveries at St. Vincent de Paul Society and assisted the Volunteer Lawyer Network with intake and information gathering.

Delivering meals to REAL Services clients. Photo by Barbara Johnston/University of Notre Dame

At Cultivate Food Rescue, a group of 20 students, faculty and staff bagged 5,400 meals, processed 400 meals and labeled 2,000 trays. “They were all such a joy to have,” said Shelly Alwine, volunteer services and special events coordinator at Cultivate. “Law students work hard!”

Law 91��Ƶ volunteers also collected and delivered donated items for the Center for the Homeless and Dismas House, which provides transitional housing and services for people recently released from incarceration.

“This event was a great opportunity for students, faculty and staff to come together to honor one of our nation’s greatest heroes,” said Stephanie Wong, a third-year law student and president of Notre Dame Law 91��Ƶ’s Student Bar Association. “I’m also grateful to make an impact on the local South Bend community during my last year here.”

Click here to see a larger photo gallery from Notre Dame Law 91��Ƶ’s inaugural Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service.

Originally published by Notre Dame Law 91��Ƶ at law.nd.edu on Jan. 18.

Law faculty file 3 amicus briefs in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization

2021-08-03T12:45:00-04:00

Notre Dame Law 91��Ƶ’s faculty contributed to three amicus briefs in the upcoming Supreme Court case Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.

O. Carter Snead, a professor of law at Notre Dame Law 91��Ƶ and director of the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture, filed an amicus brief with Mary Ann Glendon, the Learned Hand Professor of Law, emerita, at Harvard Law 91��Ƶ.
The Paul J. Schierl/Fort Howard Corporation Professor of Law Richard Garnett, who directs the Law 91��Ƶ’s Program on Church, State and Society, co-authored a brief with the law firm Cooper & Kirk in Washington, D.C. Their brief was submitted by the Washington, D.C.-based Ethics and Public Policy Center.
The Biolchini Family Professor of Law Emeritus John Finnis co-authored a brief with Robert P. George, the McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence at Princeton University.

Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization — which questions if the Mississippi law prohibiting abortion after 15 weeks of gestation is constitutional — is widely viewed as the most important abortion law case that the Supreme Court has considered since Roe v. Wade in 1973 and Planned Parenthood v. Casey in 1992.

All three briefs submitted by Notre Dame Law 91��Ƶ faculty argue that Mississippi’s law is constitutional and Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey should be overturned.

“The Court’s abortion jurisprudence is completely untethered from the Constitution’s text, history, and tradition,” Snead and Glendon noted in their brief. “It has imposed an extreme, incoherent, unworkable, and antidemocratic legal regime for abortion on the nation for several decades (pursuant to constantly shifting rules, standards, and rationales),” and thus principles of stare decisis warrant overruling these precedents. Also, they argue, “The Court’s abortion jurisprudence grafted onto the Constitution a vision of what it means to be and flourish as a human being that isolates mother and child, pitting them against one another in a narrative of zero-sum conflict among strangers, depriving them of much needed sources of protection, support and care.”

Garnett and his co-authors also argue that stare decisis considerations favor overturning Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey.

“As a matter of the Constitution’s text and history, it is no secret that Roe is not just wrong but grievously so. Roe was roundly criticized as wrong the day it was decided, it has been robustly opposed both within and outside the Court ever since, and no sitting Justice has defended the merits of its actual reasoning,” Garnett and his co-authors state in their brief.

“By the narrowest of margins, this Court in Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992), refused to overrule Roe — not because it thought Roe was correct, but because it thought Roe must endure as a matter of stare decisis. But 30 years later it has become clear that Casey, too, was egregiously wrong, for each one of the stare decisis factors cited by Casey itself supports Roe’s repudiation.”

Originally published by Notre Dame Law 91��Ƶ at law.nd.edu on Aug. 3.

Religious Liberty Initiative files amicus brief in support of Apache Stronghold in Oak Flat litigation

2021-02-11T15:00:00-05:00

The Notre Dame Law 91��Ƶ Religious Liberty Initiative has filed an amicus brief in the United States District Court in the case Apache Stronghold v. United States of America. The brief argues in favor of religious liberty protections for Oak Flat, an Indigenous sacred site in Arizona being threatened with destruction.

The brief was filed by Notre Dame Law Associate Professor Stephanie Barclay, a First Amendment scholar who directs the Law 91��Ƶ’s Religious Liberty Initiative, along with the Religious Liberty Initiative’s student cohort. “Our brief highlights a history of callousness and coercion against Indigenous sacred sites like Oak Flat. Our religious freedom laws wouldn’t allow the government to demolish churches with impunity, and the same should be true of a site that has been sacred to the Apache people for generations,” Barclay said. The brief represents Ramon Riley, the White Mountain Apache Tribe cultural resource director; the Morning Star Institute; and the MICA (Multicultural Initiative for Community Advancement) Group.

“Notre Dame’s campus is blessed with many sacred places: from the Grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes to the Basilica of the Sacred Heart. But for the Apache people, there is only one Oak Flat,” said Dan Loesing, a second-year law student who took a lead role on this brief. “It's an honor to work to protect this historic sacred site and the free exercise of rights of those who gather there for prayer and religious ceremonies.”

In Apache Stronghold v. United States of America, the District Court of Arizona may decide whether the ramifications of the Resolution Copper Project meet the “substantial burden” requirements of the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act. The amicus brief filed by the Notre Dame Law 91��Ƶ Religious Liberty Initiative pushes back against arguments by the government that would provide basically no religious freedom protections for Indigenous sacred sites, and that would result in disparate treatment between those sites and other similar types of non-Indigenous religious exercise.

Alexandra Howell is a third-year law student at Notre Dame who also helped with the brief. She explained, “While what is sacred to majority culture and religion is generally safe from government interference, minority religious groups do not have this same guarantee. Our amicus brief made me think about how the Apache burial site located at Oak Flat is akin to Arlington National Cemetery in Washington, D.C. This section of the brief is a crucial reminder of how easy it is to disregard the need for others’ beliefs to receive protection when they look different from our own.”

The troubling pattern of lack of protection for Indigenous sacred sites is something of particular interest to Barclay. Together with co-author Michalyn Steele, Barclay on Wednesday wrote a Harvard Law Review article that argued Indigenous people should be able to more easily make a claim of a substantial burden under RFRA in order to correct certain inequalities in the law. “Allowing Indigenous peoples to demonstrate a substantial burden on their religion on the same basis as other religious groups does not in any way guarantee that they will always win their case. Rather, it simply requires government to actually justify its burdens, and it incentivizes government to be more protective of sacred sites if it can be,” the article argues.

“We are so grateful and honored that Notre Dame is helping the Apache in our time of greatest need,” said Apache Stronghold leader and former San Carlos Apache Tribal Chairman Wendsler Nosie Sr. “The government is saying that destruction of Chi'chil Bildagoteel will not be a serious problem for us when its destruction will force us to stop practicing our religion.”

The photo at the top of this page is by Elias Butler.

Originally published by Notre Dame Law 91��Ƶ at law.nd.edu on Feb. 11.

Wall Street Journal names ‘What It Means to Be Human’ one of the year’s best books

2020-12-15T11:00:00-05:00

O. Carter Snead’s new book, “What It Means to Be Human: The Case for the Body in Public Bioethics,” has garnered a great deal of attention since Harvard University Press released it in October. The book has been reviewed in numerous newspapers and magazines and discussed by top legal and political scholars on podcasts and academic panels.

And now the Wall Street Journal has declared “What It Means to Be Human” one of the year’s top 10 books.

Snead, a professor of law at Notre Dame Law 91��Ƶ and director of the University of Notre Dame’s de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture, is one of the world’s leading experts on public bioethics — the governance of science, medicine and biotechnology in the name of ethical goods. In “What It Means to Be Human,” he proposes “a vision of human identity and flourishing that supports those who are profoundly vulnerable and dependent — children, the disabled and the elderly” and analyzes how that vision would affect three of the most complex issues in bioethics: abortion, assisted reproductive technology and end-of-life decisions.

In listing “What It Means to Be Human” among the 10 best books of 2020, the Wall Street Journal wrote, “Under American law, a person is defined largely by his capacity to formulate and pursue future plans of his own invention. But where does that leave those unable to make choices — the mentally impaired, those in extreme pain, children in the womb? This important work of moral philosophy argues that all of us are, first and foremost, embodied beings, and that public policy must recognize the limits and gifts that this entails.”

In a separate review of the book that ran in the Wall Street Journal in November, author and political analyst Yuval Levin wrote, “By sketching out an ethic of mutual obligation rooted in our common vulnerabilities, the book opens a path toward a more humane society. More than an important contribution to bioethics, 'What It Means to Be Human' is among the most important works of moral philosophy produced so far in this century.” Levin also participated with Princeton’s Robert P. George in a Heritage Foundation panel discussion about the book.

A video of Snead’s book talk for First Things magazine is embedded below.

The Notre Dame Constitutional 91��Ƶ Program hosted a panel discussion on “What It Means to Be Human” in October with New York Times columnist Ross Douthat, Harvard’s Mary Ann Glendon and author Rod Dreher. Click here to watch a video of the discussion.

Originally published by Notre Dame Law 91��Ƶ at law.nd.edu on Dec. 14.