News Release: FAMU Law Student Selected to Serve with The Bronx Defenders

ORLANDO, Fla.- Florida A&M University (FAMU) College of Law student Diona Willis is working in New York this summer as part of the Veterans Legal Corps (VLC). Willis is serving at The Bronx Defenders and will receive a monetary educational award for service.

Over the summer, Equal Justice Works is mobilizing 100 law students, representing 60 different law schools, to serve in its Veterans Legal Corps (VLC), an AmeriCorps program that helps low-income and homeless veterans secure access to income, housing, employment, and health care. Law students also serve the veteran community by working on disability benefit cases, reducing fines and debts, and other services.

Through the program, law students will have a unique opportunity to gain hands-on legal experience, engage in community outreach and education projects, deliver presentations on veterans’ rights, and build relationships with community partners to help strengthen support for veterans.

Students will work across 60 host organizations and 28 states to serve the veteran community on a wide range of issue areas, many of which overlap—these include affordable housing and evictions, medical-legal partnerships, consumer and medical debt, family law, and more.

The Bronx Defenders is a public defender nonprofit that is radically transforming how low-income people in the Bronx are represented in the justice system and, in doing so, is transforming the system itself. For more information about The Bronx Defenders, please visit bronxdefenders.org/who-we-are/

For more information about the FAMU College of Law, please visit law.famu.edu. 

Photo caption: Diona Willis