By Catherine Stanton

Justice for Military Families (JMF) is the MSJDN pro bono initiative that connects military families with legal needs to legal assistance from military spouse attorneys. JMF currently partners with  Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors (TAPS) to provide legal counsel and services to military families who have experienced the loss of a service member.

As part of this partnership, MSJDN is working to create Grandparents’ Visitation Rights Guides for each state that TAPS can reference when working with parents of fallen service members. MSJDN member Sally Reddy took the helm of this effort last year, and with the help of other military spouse attorneys, delivered these guides to TAPS for nine states: California, Colorado, Florida, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, New York, Oklahoma, and Ohio.

A big THANK YOU goes out to all who contributed to this first round of drafting and developing the guides! A special thank you goes to Sally Reddy, without whose diligence and leadership, it would not have been possible. Recently, Sally stepped down to focus on a new job (congratulations, Sally!), and Catherine Stanton has taken over the effort to get the guide completed.

But there is still work to be done! We are renewing the call for volunteers to help draft these visitation guides for the remaining states. We still have 41 states to go before the project is complete, and there are deserving Gold Star families in need of our help. Military spouse attorneys and all members of the legal community are encouraged to get involved.

MSJDN members can find examples of the guides in the document library on this website. Research and drafting of one guide typically takes less than 5 hours, and you do not need to be a family law expert or licensed in a particular state to help draft a guide.

If you are interested in taking on a Grandparents’ Right Guide, please contact Catherine Stanton at catherine@stantonlawfirmllc.com.