Photo By Sgt. Juanita Philip | Army Pfc. Charone Shivers (right) and Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class Sundae Lewis of...... read more read more
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Before deploying to Joint Task Force Guantanamo Bay, all service members must perform a legal review to ensure everything is in place in the event of an emergency. For those who may still need legal support, the Office of Legal Assistance is here to help.
“The Legal Assistance Office of Joint Task Force Guantanamo is available to its personnel, family members, Department of Defense civilian employees and civilian contractors,” said Navy Lt. Albert Cho, legal attorney officer-in-charge. “We offer legal advice on personal legal issues such as family law, military law, economics, consumer protection and personal property concerns, while serving as an advocate in a competent, caring, professional and expedient manner.”
Army Pfc. Charone Shivers, a paralegal specialist with the legal office, explains some of the services the office offers.
“We offer many services here,” Shivers said. “The ones used the most are walk-in services like notaries, bills of sale for vehicles here at GTMO, last wills and testaments, and powers of attorney. We all have business to handle before we come here, and your sanity is not intact until you handle certain things legally.”
Shivers explains that many Troopers may experience a change in circumstance that necessitates a visit to the legal office to draft new documents.
“I think most Troopers come in here to get powers of attorney,” Shivers said. “This gives loved ones back home the resources to handle their business.”
While walk-in service can take care of some issues, there are some the legal office would recommend the Trooper make an appointment for. Some of these services are divorce, information on separation, child custody and civil services.
The legal office also provides information that may affect a Trooper’s bank account. Many Troopers don’t know that if they have loans or other financial obligations, there is a way to postpone or suspend payments on them. That valuable benefit for deployed service members is part of the Service Members Civil Relief Act.
SCRA provides a wide range of protections to deployed service members. A few examples of financial obligations that Troopers are protected against include credit card debt, mortgage payments, trials, taxes and terminations of lease.
“A lot of service members have heard about [SCRA], but I don’t think they understand just how the service is there for them,” Shivers said.
Another aspect to the SCRA that the legal office can help Troopers with is the rate of interest charged on debt.
“We can draft up a letter for the Troopers that gets interest on debt down to six percent while they are on a deployment,” Shivers said.
According to Shivers, it’s not uncommon for Troopers to be completely unaware of their rights.
“I don’t know if Troopers know that legal assistance is available to them,” Shivers said. “They are so diligent in their tasks, they just forget that they are offered so many legal services.”
Both Cho and Shivers emphasized that the most important message they can give Troopers is that if there’s something they don’t know about, they can come to the legal office and the personnel there will go the extra mile to find the answer and help.
| Date Taken: | 07.21.2010 |
| Date Posted: | 08.04.2010 14:21 |
| Story ID: | 53948 |
| Location: | JOINT TASK FORCE GUANTANAMO BAY, CUBA, CU |
| Web Views: | 320 |
| Downloads: | 62 |
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