Veterans Honor Library Director Paul Lomio
Illustration by Greg Clarke

Libraries are often places of refuge, providing quiet and calm in a harried world. Perhaps it wasn’t surprising that veterans attending Stanford Law, many of them just back from active tours of duty, spent time in the law library and found a kindred spirit in J. Paul Lomio, its director. Lomio served in the U.S. Army as a platoon leader from 1972 to 1975 at Nike Hercules batteries in Fort Story, Virginia, and Camp Holiday, South Korea. When students decided to launch the Stanford Law Veterans Organization (SLVO), they looked to Lomio for advice and inspiration. • “Paul Lomio was SLVO’s first and continuous advisor,” says Jake Klonoski, JD ’13, an SLVO co-founder. “Paul helped with setting up the group in 2010 and offered thoughts on how it could develop.” • After Lomio passed away on March 6, 2015, SLVO students decided to name their pro bono project the “Paul Lomio Veterans Legal Assistance Program” in his honor. • Organized last summer by the first recipient of the Law School Veterans Fund Summer Fellowship, Vince Mazzurco, JD ’16, and launched in December, the program brings lawyers to the VA Hospital in Palo Alto twice each month to provide legal services to veterans. With help from Swords to Plowshares, the group’s nonprofit partner, and Gabe Ledeen, JD ’12, a former SLVO member now at Jones Day, the program offers legal services to 10 to 15 veterans each visit, assisting with a wide range of needs from disability claims to housing questions. • “We wanted to do something to recognize how important Paul was to SLVO. More than anyone, he was a mentor to us. We could look to him for counsel,” says Mazzurco, who graduated from the Naval Academy in 2007 and served as a Marine officer. He describes the many news clippings that Lomio sent his way. “They gave me an understanding of the scope of the problem. I got a sense of how important it was to Paul that we work on this.”