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Penn State Law Veterans Clinic client seeks minority stem cell donor

This past summer, the Clinic assisted U.S. Navy and Vietnam veteran Lou Berrio with his leukemia-related Agent Orange VA claim. Through the financial donations made by the Clinic’s previous clients, the Clinic was able to help Berrio obtain an expert medical opinion and guide him and his daughter through the steps of filing the claim. Berrio’s story is made particularly urgent because of his need for a stem cell donor—a treatment option that could save his life.
Keyla Robles and Katherine Owens | Penn State Law

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. – United States veterans face a daunting and complicated disability claims process before the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), filled with obstacles that can make it incredibly difficult for them to access the benefits and care they deserve. For that reason, specialized law school clinics that train students to become lawyers while helping clients with real problems, like the Penn State Law Veterans and Servicemembers Legal Clinic, are essential in providing legal assistance to veterans.

This past summer, the Clinic assisted U.S. Navy and Vietnam veteran  Lou Berrio, a California resident, with his leukemia-related Agent Orange VA claim. Berrio was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia, a rare and aggressive cancer. Through the financial donations made by the Clinic’s previous clients, the Clinic was able to help Berrio obtain an expert medical opinion and guide him and his daughter through the steps of filing the claim, ensuring they not only understood each part of the process, but also felt reassured and supported.

Berrio’s story is made particularly urgent because of his need for a stem cell donor—a treatment option that could save his life. He was immediately placed on the NMDP Registry, formerly known as National Marrow Donor Program and Be The Match. This entity is a global nonprofit leader in blood stem cell and bone marrow transplants that manages the nation’s registry of adult volunteer donors. Unfortunately, the availability of stem cell donors for people of color remains critically low. Because Berrio is Black Panamanian, finding a minority stem cell donor “match” has been particularly difficult for him. According to an article about his story by the Claremont-Courier, “there are more than 9 million donors on the national NMDP Registry. Just 8% identify as Black,  9% Asian, 9% multiracial, 13% Hispanic, with the overwhelming majority of 55% coming from white donors. Ethnicity and race play a significant role in matching donors with patients.” The article noted that Berrio is “most likely to find a match with somebody who has origins, family, ancestry from the Central America area, Panamanian area, or from the Black community.”

The article emphasized that “[l]ess than one in three Black patients find a fully matched donor on the registry, while white patients’ success rate is about 79%.” This need for minority donor matches is a harsh reality that many patients and families face, especially in communities where awareness is limited. Berrio hopes to raise awareness not only about his battle with Leukemia, but also about the urgent need for more stem cell donors, especially from racial and ethnic minorities. The Claremont-Courier article contains links to learn more information about Berrio’s story, the NMDP Registry, and how to join the registry.

Every semester, the continued dedication of students demonstrates the power of advocacy and the Clinic’s role in pursuing justice for all its clients, including Berrio. Third-year student Keyla Robles is a student clinician this semester. She chose to attend Penn State Law for several reasons; however, one was especially significant to her–her husband, Jesse. He is a Navy veteran and is currently pursuing a geosciences degree at Penn State. Penn State’s geosciences program is one of the best in the nation, so it was clear that Penn State was going to give them both the resources they needed to excel in their respective careers. But Robles’ decision to attend Penn State was about more than just pursuing academic success—it was about giving back. “I’ve always wanted to help veterans,” said Robles. “It’s a community I know well, and I felt a personal responsibility to support those who served, including my husband.” The Clinic continues to inspire her to give back to the veteran community.

The most memorable aspect of her experience has been seeing the tangible impact that the Clinic has on the lives of veterans.

“Veterans are often viewed as symbols of national pride, so asking for help can be a very vulnerable experience for them,” said Robles. “Therefore, knowing that I can make their path to receiving the support they deserve a little easier has been incredibly rewarding. That is why it is so important for me to participate in this Clinic.”

Through her work as a clinician, Robles has honed her advocacy skills by interviewing clients, learning how to read military personnel and medical records carefully to find important evidence to support a claim, conducting difficult federal law research under the Administrative Procedure Act for a lawsuit seeking military medical retirement pay, and writing a persuasive memo to describe that challenging research.

Witnessing her own husband’s challenges during and after service has given her the motivation to help veterans as much as she can.

“The Clinic has not only provided me with resources to grow as an advocate, but it has also given me experiences that will stay with me throughout my professional career and personal life,” she emphasized.

Those experiences include learning that her clients really appreciate her work and trust her professional advice more when she has given the clients periodic updates, shown them that she read all of their documents carefully, and listened intently when she talked with, interviewed, and counseled them. Clients also trust her more when she can show them that she has analyzed their claims and appeals from all angles and tried many different avenues to obtain a favorable outcome for the client.

Third-year student Katherine Owens shares a similar story to Robles. Owens’ husband is a U.S. Army veteran, and she watched his transition out of the Army and his personal relationship with the VA develop. This provided her with a personal understanding of the disability claims process. Owens also had professional experience with the VA prior to law school.

“I was a contractor for the Department of Veterans Affairs,” said Owens. “My position gave me some insight into the inner workings of the agency, but I often felt powerless to fix the many challenges I saw veterans experiencing.”

As a result of these connections, she explained that when she applied to law school, one of her goals was to find a way to continue to be involved with veterans but in a manner that she felt was actually helping and making a difference in their lives. She chose Penn State Law specifically for its Veterans and Servicemembers Legal Clinic.

Owens’ most memorable moment as a clinical student was finding out that one of the clients she assisted had won a rating of 100 percent for benefits from the VA. This client had struggled with a rare and, at times, debilitating form of cancer for many years before coming to the Clinic. The case was challenging; he was a fighter pilot for 20 years, but there were gaps in many of his records and the nature of his work meant he was not stationed at any one military base for very long. However, some of the places he was stationed had been subsequently recognized as hazardous sites, so Owens and other students in the Clinic pored over whatever records they could find—looking at EPA maps of toxic underground sites and handwritten notations by Air Force doctors from the 1980s—to build a case. Although the Clinic was not sure if this evidence was enough to persuade the VA, they filed the claim and won. The Clinic emphasizes to its students that being a good lawyer means always doing your absolute best work for every client, no matter what the outcome may be.

Navigating the disability claims process with veterans may seem like a disheartening experience, but Owens, like many of the Clinic’s students, has always maintained a positive outlook.

“Even though the cases that come to the Clinic often involve mental and physical injuries and injustices that have gone unaddressed for years, the resilience of the veterans outshines their challenges in every case,” said Owens. “During most of the meetings or calls we had with clients, I remember them making us laugh or smile.”

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