VETERAN ADVOCACY PROJECT - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Director of Military Law at VAP
Brent Filbert is the Director of Military Law at VAP. From 2018 to 2021, Brent served as the Clinical Director at the Veterans Clinic at the University of Missouri School of Law, where he established the Veteran Clinic's discharge upgrade program and oversaw all upgrade cases. In addition to teaching veterans and law and trial advocacy, Brent also represented veterans in VA disability compensation appeals, prepared and submitted amicus briefs in important veterans law cases, and put together an annual national symposium on veterans law issues.
Prior to joining the Veterans Clinic, Brent spent 30 years as an attorney in the military and in private practice. He served as Appellate Defense Counsel and Judge for the Navy-Marine Corps Court of Criminal Appeals; he was a prosecutor and defense counsel in military criminal trials; and he worked as a Special Assistant U.S. Attorney in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Brent retired as a Navy Captain in 2018. In private practice, Brent served as litigation counsel for Hughes, Hubbard & Reed, and a partner at Shook, Hardy & Bacon, working as a litigation attorney on product liability and toxic tort cases. He is an undergrad alum of University of Missouri (with honors), and received his J.D. (with distinction) at University of Missouri - Kansas City. Brent is also a distinguished graduate of the Naval War College - College of Naval Command and Staff, and has an LL.M. in Trial Advocacy from Temple University School of Law.
Job Titles:
- Executive Director
- Founder
Coco Culhane is the founder and executive director of the Veteran Advocacy Project. She is an adjunct professor of clinical law at Brooklyn Law School, where she teaches the Veterans' Rights Clinic and seminar. She sits on several advisory boards, including the New York State Discharge Upgrade Advisory Board and the Veterans' Mental Health Coalition Advisory Board; she is a founding advisor to the NYC Veterans Alliance and has served on Senator Kirsten Gillibrand's service academy selection committees each year since 2014. After launching VAP as a part of the Mental Health Project of the Urban Justice Center in 2010, Coco received an Equal Justice Works Fellowship sponsored by the CIGNA Foundation and Cravath, Swaine & Moore, LLP.
Coco has presented on veterans' legal issues and conducted trainings for attorneys, social workers, and students at conferences across the country. She received a J.D. from Brooklyn Law School, where she was the symposium editor of the Brooklyn Law Review and co-president of the student health law association. Prior to law school she was an editor at The New Republic for six years. She received a B.A. in English from Wesleyan University.
Katelyn Vaiana is a staff attorney at the Veteran Advocacy Project. She is passionate about providing access to mental health and legal services to underserved populations. Prior to law school, Katelyn spent several years working with veterans at the Economic Opportunity Council of Suffolk in their homelessness prevention program, Supportive Services for Veterans' Families (SSVF).
Katelyn received her J.D. from the Maurice A. Deane School of Law at Hofstra University and her B.S. in Social Work from Stony Brook University, where she graduated summa cum laude. During law school, Katelyn participated in both the Veterans Law and Asylum Clinics, and she was an associate editor of the Hofstra Law Review, where her note on creating medical exceptions to the Controlled Substances Act was published in 2020.
Marquise Rivon is a staff attorney at the Veteran Advocacy Project. Marquise began his legal career in the Office of the Bronx District Attorney, where he prosecuted misdemeanor and violent felony cases. Most recently, Marquise was a staff attorney at Legal Services of the Hudson Valley, where he represented survivors of domestic violence in family court.
Marquise received his J.D. from Rutgers School of Law and his B.A. in Political Science and Writing and Rhetoric from the University of Rhode Island. During law school, Marquise participated in the Criminal and Youth Justice Clinic and was an associate managing editor of the Rutgers Law Record, where his article on crowdfunding was published in 2016. Marquise also served as an enlisted soldier in the Rhode Island National Guard as a Human Resource Specialist.
Paul Funkhouser is a legal advocate at the Veteran Advocacy Project. He received his B.A. in Art History at New York University College of Arts and Sciences. He also minored in Spanish and is a fluent Spanish speaker.