Veterans Court Annual Judicial Conference

The attorneys of Goodman Allen Donnelly’s Veterans Benefit Group attended the annual judicial conference of the Veterans Court held March 4-5, 2010 in Washington, D.C. The conference draws attorneys from around the country who represent veterans, the VA, and those who work for the court itself, as well as the judges and other court staff, all for the purpose of sharing ideas about how the law is developing and ways to make the court work better. There were over 300 attendees and the keynote address was given by retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor.

Three of our firm’s attorneys were individually recognized for the worthwhile ideas they submitted for improving the court’s practice: Dan Krasnegor, Sandy Wischow, Nancy Foti.

In introducing a presentation concerning medical opinions in veterans cases, Judge Davis of the court quoted from a recent article on the subject by Goodman Allen Donnelly’s David Boelzner. You can link to the article through our blog.

On the final day of the conference, the Secretary for Veterans Affairs, General Eric K. Shinseki, gave an address highlighting the enormity of the work facing the agency and added comments on the progress of several of his new initiatives. Gen. Shinseki candidly acknowledged the many challenges the agency faces and expressed his personal disappointment in the lack of progress made so far in relieving the claim backlog. He explained that this was largely due to having to divert resources to some programs pushed to the forefront by Congress. He pledged to redouble the effort to reduce the claims backlog, declaring his intention to achieve that goal by 2015.