Ryan will serve as Lt. Governor for the ABA and direct veteran advocacy programs within the first circuit for the duration of the 2010/2011 academic year. The following law schools are in the first circuit:

• Boston College Law School
• Boston University School of Law
• Franklin Pierce Law Center
• Harvard Law School
• New England School of Law
• Northeastern University School of Law
• Quinnipiac University School of Law
• Roger Williams University School of Law
• Suffolk University Law School
• University of Connecticut School of Law
• University of Maine School of Law
• Vermont Law School
• Western New England College School of Law
• Yale Law School

After serving in Afghanistan, military veteran Ryan Cleckner took on a new cause, safeguarding veterans’ rights. He started by launching a veterans’ advocacy student group.

Fighting the good fight

When combat veteran Ryan Cleckner left the battlefield after two tours in Afghanistan, he thought his fighting days were finally behind him.

He was wrong. Cleckner, a sniper with the U.S. Army’s elite 1st Ranger Battalion, didn’t realize he was simply inheriting a new fight.

Back home and suffering from joint and muscle pain due to his service, Cleckner turned to his local veterans’ hospital in Arizona. But like many of his fellow veterans, what he found was a frustrating bureaucracy that denied him treatment for years.

Perseverance eventually got Cleckner the care he needed, and it gave him something else, too: a career path. “I decided the best way to fight the system and to help other veterans was to become a lawyer,” he says. “There are so many vets who are worse off than me.”

After graduating from Arizona State University with a degree in political science, Cleckner applied to law schools, and says he found the right one at Quinnipiac. On campus, he got right to work.

Cleckner teamed up with another first-year student and founded the Veteran’s Advocacy Group, a student organization dedicated to educating students about civilian-military relations, military careers and veterans’ issues. The group also takes part in community service on behalf of area veterans.

“We’re making Quinnipiac a forerunner in veterans’ issues,” Cleckner says. “The group has been greeted with open arms. Everyone has been so supportive.”

And Cleckner has found that cooperative spirit extends into the classroom. “Being able to come here has let me enjoy law school every day,” he says. “It’s not this cut-throat, competitive environment. This place is amazing.”

Cleckner has launched a fledgling organization, the New Battlefront Foundation, devoted to helping vets transition from military to civilian life. The organization’s Web site addresses topics including health care, education and job services.

In the future, Cleckner hopes to build on his initiatives. “The field of veterans’ law is booming,” he says. “Vets today really need representation.”

Source: http://law.quinnipiac.edu/x707.xml

His current two year term on the board runs from the retroactive date of 01/04/10 to 12/31/11.

QU Law Magazine – Winter 2010
Monday, March 1, 2010

When first-year law students Brian Gregorio and Ryan Cleckner discovered that none of the nearly 30 active student organizations at the School of Law focused on the needs of U.S. military veterans, they took it upon themselves to found one.

“With two wars going on, it is amazing that veterans are still such an underrepresented demographic,” said Gregorio. The purpose of the Veterans Advocacy Group is to encourage students to learn about civil military legal relations, military legal careers and veteran-specific issues.

The group, which held its first meeting in October, also will provide resources to combat veteran post-traumatic stress disorder. Gregorio, a former U.S. Army Military Intelligence interrogator/linguist who completed his three-year term in June, is the vice president of the veterans group and a member of the Student Bar Association.

Ryan Cleckner, the group’s president and a former sniper in the First Ranger Battalion, said the goal of the group is to raise awareness, give veterans a sense of community and aid the region’s veterans through community service. “It’s nice to have allies on campus,” he said. “We have been amazed with the amount of support we have received from the law school community.”

The organization, which had more than a dozen active members within three weeks of its formation, has already begun to touch the lives of veterans through volunteer work in the area. “A classroom is very far removed from a battlefield, and it is important to remember there are men and women serving in harm’s way for us,” Cleckner said.

The advocacy group is open to any of the 418 law students currently enrolled at Quinnipiac, though the organizers hope to reach out to other universities.

Source: http://www.quinnipiac.edu/prebuilt/pdf/magazines/law_winter2010/Law_winter10_student.pdf
Download .pdf of QU Law Magazine Winter 2010: http://www.quinnipiac.edu/prebuilt/pdf/magazines/law_winter2010/Law_winter10_full.pdf

North Haven Courier
Thursday, January 21, 2010
By Jason Marchi

There’s a motivational saying that goes something like this: “The best way to predict the future is to invent it.”
Although Ryan Cleckner
admits he wishes he’d invented that saying, he’s already living its philosophy when it comes to fighting for the rights of soldiers returning from war-torn Iraq and
Afghanistan.

Just two weeks into the start of Ryan’s first year at Quinnipiac University’s School of Law this past fall, he approached the school’s dean to ask if he could start the student-run Veteran’s Advocacy Group.

His motivation to found the group was derived-quite logically-from personal experience.

“Five years into my claim with the V.A. [Veteran's Administration], I got a letter saying they were denying me because they had no proof of my military service
because they could not find my medical records,” Ryan explains.

“That was the last straw,” he continues, noting his utter frustration with the uphill battle the V.A. was giving him. “This [situation] could never exist in the private world. An insurance company could never say they’ve lost your paperwork and then deny that claim,” Ryan claims.

When Ryan also learned-through Associated Press articles-that many veterans were being short-changed in any number of areas in which they needed support (from educational to medical), he decided to make his bid to become part of the solution.

“I said I’m going to law school to see what I can do about it,” he states, adding “I’m not that bad off, but there are guys out there who are. There was an A.P. story about nine veterans who were given HIV by three different V.A. hospitals…because they weren’t cleaning the colonoscopy equipment. And there was another A.P. article about the V.A. shredding the only copies of soldiers’ medical files because they were getting so behind in their work.”

Once Ryan’s application for the Veteran’s Advocacy Group
received university approval, fellow veteran Brian Gregorio assumed the post of the group’s vice president and three weeks later the group was 12 members strong.

Joining the armed forces “was the last thing I and everybody else expected I would go into,” Ryan recalls of his route into the military. “I had no direction then and I thought [the Army]
sounded fun,” he says.

Although Ryan claims he had “no direction” fresh out of high school, he did have enough vision to convince his Army recruiter that he wanted the immediate opportunity to train as an airborne ranger. Once he passed the extremely rigorous testing, he became a sniper with the First Ranger Battalion.

Of his Army career as a
sniper, the Phoenix, Arizona,
native says, “I’ve had to hide my status a little because it scares people, but I don’t know why it should. People hear the word ’sniper’ and they think ‘evil.’ But then I ask them, ‘Do you think police SWAT snipers are evil? Do you think that snipers at the White House who protect the president are evil?’ Of course they don’t and I say, ‘I was doing the same thing, but for our country, so I’m not evil.’”

Now that Ryan, his wife April, and their two dogs are settled in North Haven while he works on his law degree, he admits he’s so in love with the Northeast he’ll never return to the arid west.

And when it comes to his
appreciation for those who volunteer in the U.S. Armed Forces, Ryan concludes, “I want people to be thankful and I want to thank every veteran for serving. I want them to be proud of what they do, no matter what their job [or rank] in the military.”

Source: http://www.theday.com/article/20100121/NWS10/301219744

Connecticut Post-Chronicle
December 22, 2009
By: Lynn Fredricksen

HAMDEN — One man’s struggle with military medical bureaucracy led him to a new career and was the impetus for a new Veteran’s Advocacy group at Quinnipiac University.

Ryan Cleckner, of North Haven, served in the U.S. Army in Afghanistan as a sniper. With his tour of duty complete, Cleckner returned to the states, injured and suffering hearing loss. When he sought care through the Veterans Administration in his home state of Arizona, he was appalled by the treatment he received.

“They completely lost all my medical records,” Cleckner said. “You’re not allowed to have a copy of your own because they’re considered military property. I was promised that they’d take care of me if I was hurt. I made a contract with the government and they’re not upholding their end.”

While Cleckner’s medical records reappeared, it was only after he contacted his senator. He soon decided the system was such that it was nearly impossible to fight it, he said.

“I decided this system is horrible,” he said. “Then I decided I wanted to be a lawyer and go to law school and help people because there are veterans worse off than me.”

After looking at a couple of law schools, Cleckner chose Quinnipiac. He and his wife, April, moved to North Haven with their two dogs and he started school.

Once Cleckner saw that there are laws for dealing with the Veterans’ Administration that differ from those taught in law school, he realized the need for an advocacy group at the school.

After getting the necessary approvals and a faculty sponsor, Cleckner set out to publicize what he was doing. The only other veteran he knew was classmate Brian Gregorio.

“I asked him if he wanted to join and he agreed,” Cleckner said. He added that Gregorio immediately became Vice-President of the group.

The two have since appointed a treasurer and a secretary. Now they are working to line up guest speakers for next semester, Cleckner said.

“This is not a veterans club to come and hang out,” Cleckner explained. “The idea of the club is to try to get awareness out there that there is a demographic whose legal issues kind of get forgotten.”

He plans to have speakers from the healthcare side of the issue as well as the advocacy side.

Cleckner believes that the problems with military medical care also include issues of competency.

“When I got out of the military I was pretty banged up. I was limping and using a cane for about six months,” Cleckner said. “When I saw the primary care doctor, he gave me a prescription for Motrin. I told him I could buy that myself at the store.”

Cleckner said his group is open to non-veterans as well as those who have served in the armed forces.

Source: http://www.ctpostchronicle.com/articles/2009/12/22/news/doc4b30db2629809227835143.txt

Ryan Cleckner:Fighting for our Veterans
North Haven Courier
Thursday, January 21, 2010
By Jason Marchi

There’s a motivational saying that goes something like this: “The best way to predict the future is to invent it.”
Although Ryan Cleckner
admits he wishes he’d invented that saying, he’s already living its philosophy when it comes to fighting for the rights of soldiers returning from war-torn Iraq and
Afghanistan.

Just two weeks into the start of Ryan’s first year at Quinnipiac University’s School of Law this past fall, he approached the school’s dean to ask if he could start the student-run Veteran’s Advocacy Group.

His motivation to found the group was derived-quite logically-from personal experience.

“Five years into my claim with the V.A. [Veteran's Administration], I got a letter saying they were denying me because they had no proof of my military service
because they could not find my medical records,” Ryan explains.

“That was the last straw,” he continues, noting his utter frustration with the uphill battle the V.A. was giving him. “This [situation] could never exist in the private world. An insurance company could never say they’ve lost your paperwork and then deny that claim,” Ryan claims.

When Ryan also learned-through Associated Press articles-that many veterans were being short-changed in any number of areas in which they needed support (from educational to medical), he decided to make his bid to become part of the solution.

“I said I’m going to law school to see what I can do about it,” he states, adding “I’m not that bad off, but there are guys out there who are. There was an A.P. story about nine veterans who were given HIV by three different V.A. hospitals…because they weren’t cleaning the colonoscopy equipment. And there was another A.P. article about the V.A. shredding the only copies of soldiers’ medical files because they were getting so behind in their work.”

Once Ryan’s application for the Veteran’s Advocacy Group
received university approval, fellow veteran Brian Gregorio assumed the post of the group’s vice president and three weeks later the group was 12 members strong.

Joining the armed forces “was the last thing I and everybody else expected I would go into,” Ryan recalls of his route into the military. “I had no direction then and I thought [the Army]
sounded fun,” he says.

Although Ryan claims he had “no direction” fresh out of high school, he did have enough vision to convince his Army recruiter that he wanted the immediate opportunity to train as an airborne ranger. Once he passed the extremely rigorous testing, he became a sniper with the First Ranger Battalion.

Of his Army career as a
sniper, the Phoenix, Arizona,
native says, “I’ve had to hide my status a little because it scares people, but I don’t know why it should. People hear the word ’sniper’ and they think ‘evil.’ But then I ask them, ‘Do you think police SWAT snipers are evil? Do you think that snipers at the White House who protect the president are evil?’ Of course they don’t and I say, ‘I was doing the same thing, but for our country, so I’m not evil.’”

Now that Ryan, his wife April, and their two dogs are settled in North Haven while he works on his law degree, he admits he’s so in love with the Northeast he’ll never return to the arid west.

And when it comes to his
appreciation for those who volunteer in the U.S. Armed Forces, Ryan concludes, “I want people to be thankful and I want to thank every veteran for serving. I want them to be proud of what they do, no matter what their job [or rank] in the military.”

The announcement from the Connecticut Law Tribune’s website:

Dozen Who Made A Difference

Whoa, what a year. The CBA got an overhaul, legal aid agencies weathered a crisis, a horrific chimpanzee attack spawned lawsuits, and New Haven firefighters had their day in the Supreme Court. Through it all, lawyers in the public and private sectors did some pretty remarkable things. Our look back at 2009 features stories on a dozen people or groups of people who left their mark during turbulent times. . .

Livia Barndollar/Norman Janes: Cleaning House And Infusing Energy

Daniel LaBelle/Robert Golger: A Strong Defense For Unpopular Client

Nancy Tyler: From Hostage To Hero

Zenas Zelotes: ‘Junkyard Dog’ Bites At The Bar

Ryan Cleckner/Brian Gregorio: Finding A New Way To Fight

Innocence Project: Helping More Men Get Out Of Prison

Matthew Newman: ‘A Once-In-A-Career Case’

Krishna Patel: Putting Away Sexual Predators

Fred Anthony: At The Heart Of A Historic Reform

Ivy McKinney: A Corporate Lawyer With A Can-Do Attitude

Karen Lee Torre: A Long Journey To A Landmark Decision

Steven Eppler-Epstein: A Captain Responds To Crisis

Connecticut Law Tribune
Monday, December 21, 2009
By Robin DeMerril

Combat veteran Ryan Cleckner limped into a local veterans hospital after returning home from service as an airborne sniper and team leader in the U.S. Army’s 1st Ranger Battalion. He had severe hip and back pain and needed a cane to walk. The hospital’s doctors sent Cleckner on his way with a handful of ibuprofen – hardly the treatment he expected as a wounded veteran who served four years for his country.

After six years of fighting the system – lost medical records and misplaced disability claims – Cleckner had all but lost hope. Since Cleckner doesn’t shy away from a challenge, he decided to change the system – not just for himself, but for all veterans.

This past fall, the 30-year-old North Haven resident enrolled at Quinnipiac School of Law “so that I may learn how to fight the system in a way that can actually make a difference. I wanted to help veterans fight the [Department of Veterans Affairs] to get the care they deserve and help raise awareness for post-traumatic stress disorder issues,” he said. “I decided the best way to do this was to become a lawyer.”

Once Cleckner arrived at the Hamden law school he saw that there was no organization on campus for veterans. So he and fellow law-school student Brian Gregorio started their own Veterans’ Advocacy Group.

“I approached the Dean of Student Affairs, pitched my idea and was given permission to start the process,” said Cleckner, now the group’s president. “I established the group to support veteran students, help veterans in our community and help educate other law students about veterans’ issues through guest lectures and presentations.”

According to the Student Veterans of America (SVA), a coalition of student veterans organizations on college campuses across the country, there is an overwhelming demand for such organizations. Since SVA was founded in January 2008, it has grown to more than 120 chapters in 36 states and the District of Columbia. According to its web site, more than half a million veterans are currently using their education benefits.

Cleckner said that so far his group has reached out to five veterans at the law school and he hopes soon to include undergraduate students as well. The purpose of the Quinnipiac Veterans’ Advocacy Group is to encourage students to learn about civil-military legal relations, military legal careers and veteran-specific issues, such as disabled veterans’ rights and combat veteran post-traumatic stress disorder, an affliction that advocates say has driven many veterans into civil and criminal courtrooms.

“With two wars going on, it is amazing that veterans are still such an underrepresented demographic,” said 25-year-old Gregorio, the group’s vice president and a former U.S. Army Military Intelligence interrogator/linguist who completed his three-year military enlistment in June. “We have received an amazing amount of support from the students and faculty in the law school community.”

The two men agreed that it was important that help be as easily accessible for those who served their country as possible. For students who are veterans, they believe that help should be right on campus. He and Gregorio also agreed that students who served in the military need a place to get information and support from others who have had similar experiences.

“We felt that as veterans and law students, we had a unique opportunity to assist our fellow service members who may be experiencing difficulties in transitioning back to civilian life,” Gregorio said. “Our primary goal is to reach out to these individuals and let them know that their service is not forgotten and there are those who want to help.”

Even though the grassroots group has just started, things appear to be going well and for next semester there is already a lineup of guest speakers who will talk about veterans’ health, legal and post-traumatic stress disorder issues.

“Our goal is to make Quinnipiac University School of Law a forerunner in veterans’ issues,” Cleckner said. “I want us to do whatever we can to help every veteran.”

Source: http://www.ctlawtribune.com/getarticle.aspx?ID=35868