A dying veteran dishonorably discharged from the Army in 1955 finally had his discharge upgraded to honorable at the end of September, securing medical benefits and a military burial.

The victory of 85-year-old Needham Mayes of Brooklyn is the latest for a project that New York County Lawyers Association president Stephen Lessard, a Navy veteran, has quietly undertaken for six years. Lessard, a senior associate at Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe, said he worked with his first discharge veteran client when Orrick was doing pro bono work with the Manhattan-based Veteran Advocacy Project.

In 2012, the Veteran Advocacy Project recognized a "huge unmet legal need" for veterans who lacked an honorable discharge, VAP founder and director Coco Culhane said.

An honorable discharge makes a veteran eligible for health care through the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, along with benefits like tuition and housing assistance.

A less-than-honorable discharge status makes it harder for a veteran to get a job, because if they acknowledge their military background, potential employers will ask for discharge paperwork, Fresco said. Stigma in the veteran community is another problem, said Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler associate Michael Fresco, who took over as program coordinator for NYCLA's Veterans Discharge Upgrade Project when Lessard became president.

Lessard, who was already involved with NYCLA in 2013, said he saw an opportunity to get more lawyers involved.

In late 2013, the Veterans Discharge Upgrade Project launched as a pro bono pilot initiative at NYCLA. Orrick and Patterson Belknap were involved throughout the pilot, with Seward & Kissel joining once the pilot stage ended in late 2018, according to Fresco and Lessard.

Fresco said he got involved with the program soon after arriving at Patterson Belknap, and he's found the work rewarding.

"It's a way for a lawyer to impact someone's life in a variety of different ways and in a very lasting way," Fresco said. "Because that stigma, as you see in this most recent case, can last a lifetime."

Clients come to the Veterans Discharge Upgrade Project through VAP, which focuses on helping veterans with post-traumatic stress, traumatic brain injuries and substance use issues. Sometimes symptoms of those issues are viewed as misconduct, leading to a less-than-honorable discharge, Culhane said.

That's created a "shadow population" of veterans who badly need help but can't access it because of the way they left the military, Culhane said.

"People want to hear about a hero, and in fact these are complicated stories and it's not a Hollywood tale," she said, adding that in certain situations, less-than-honorable discharges are appropriate.

A 2017 study from the U.S. Government Accountability Office found that nearly 60,000 military members separated for misconduct between 2011 and 2015 had been diagnosed with conditions that could be related to their misconduct.

Twenty-three percent of those veterans received a less-than-honorable discharge, and Culhane said she sees it as civilians' responsibility to help them.

When veterans are seeking a discharge upgrade, NYCLA lawyers often help them get evaluated by a forensic psychologist who can make a diagnosis relevant to the time of their alleged misconduct, Fresco said.

Most of the Veterans Discharge Upgrade Project's clients are veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Lessard said, adding that Mayes is their oldest client by far.

NYCLA helped Mayes with his second attempt for a discharge upgrade—his first, back in the 1950s, failed—in 2017, when he appealed directly to the secretary of the Army.

That effort failed, and as Mayes' health continued to decline, his legal team decided to try two methods at the same time, Lessard said. They appealed to the secretary of the Army and to the Army Board for Correction of Military Records, which was the route Mayes took in the 1950s.

On Sept. 27, less than a week after his application was filed, the Army board granted him an honorable discharge. Lessard said that's unusually fast for cases like these, which can take years.

"There was certainly new evidence since [1955] that came to his attention, to our attention," he said. "We also had a statement from the victim in the incident that expressed his support for a discharge upgrade for Mr. Mayes. And I think the declining health probably pushed things."

Mayes, then a private, was dishonorably discharged after getting into a fight with a sergeant at a club for non commissioned officers. The sergeant was shot in the leg during a fight after telling Mayes he was not supposed to be there.

Because of Mayes' poor health, Lessard said his family has gone to great lengths to tell him about his honorable discharge.

"His daughter says they've tried in every way to let him know," he said. "They have big signs posted up, they try to mention it often … She's hopeful it's kinda gotten through, but she's not 100% sure it has."

Mayes is the latest of seven clients who have secured discharge upgrades since the Veterans Discharge Upgrade Project began, Fresco said, and about two dozen more cases are pending.