Jack Brandt Named a ‘Law Student of the Year’
While serving aboard a 154-foot Coast Guard cutter in the Arabian Gulf, Jack Brandt helped plan missions designed to disrupt smuggling networks that funded extremism—often with Iranian vessels patrolling nearby. The work demanded clear thinking under pressure, careful coordination, and an instinct for solving problems before they became crises.
That same instinct now drives Brandt’s work on a different kind of high-stakes mission: reducing the friction that keeps veterans and military families from accessing the benefits and support they’ve earned.
Brandt, a third-year student at Suffolk University Law School, was named one of National Jurist’s 2026 “Law Students of the Year,” an honor that recognizes just eight students nationwide for their leadership, impact, and service.
While serving, Brandt discovered he had paid full tuition for graduate courses he could have covered through military education benefits. Once he understood what went wrong, he made it a priority to help others avoid the same outcome. As an education services officer, he worked one-on-one with crewmates to clarify their options—practical, person-by-person guidance that showed him how powerful the right information can be at the right moment.
At Suffolk Law, that experience became a blueprint: take a complex system, translate it into plain language, and build tools that help users move forward with confidence.
Brandt arrived at Suffolk Law without a coding background. Through Suffolk Law’s Legal Innovation & Technology Clinic, he learned Python and helped prototype a smart form for the Massachusetts Appeals Court—technology designed to assist self-represented litigants tackling appellate briefs.
From there, Brandt focused on the military community. He created the Military Benefits Assistant, an online platform that connects them to personalized benefits information and next steps. The platform has already helped more than 1,300 service members, veterans, and family members cut through uncertainty and find relevant resources faster.
He also built the Coast Guard Mutual Assistance (CGMA) Program Finder, a tool that helps Coast Guard families connect with the service’s nonprofit relief society when they need emergency support, as well as an automated system for Coast Guard ethics requests, which standardized a process that had varied across multiple states—replacing a fragmented approach with a single, trackable path.
“Jack is distinguished by his blend of discipline, empathy, and the speed he brings to making an impact,” said Quinten Steenhuis, co-director of the Suffolk Law Legal Innovation & Technology Lab. “He turns real user challenges—confusing benefit rules, byzantine forms, inconsistent processes—into working tools, then keeps iterating.”
At Suffolk, he serves on the Student Veterans Association executive board, volunteers with Veterans Legal Services, and supported first-year students as a Legal Practice Skills teaching assistant. This spring, he will spend his final semester in the prestigious Pro Bono Scholars program, working full time at Veterans Legal Services to help meet the civil legal needs of low-income veterans across Massachusetts.
After graduation, Brandt will continue serving as a JAG officer in the US Coast Guard. His next goal: expand the Military Benefits Assistant to include additional federal, state, tribal, and nonprofit resources—so more veterans and families can spend less time deciphering systems and more time getting the help they deserve.
Related: Suffolk Law students recently recognized as "Law Students of the Year"
Omar Hajajra, JD ’25
From a refugee camp near Bethlehem to leading war-crimes documentation—and work for the European Court of Human Rights.
Timothy Scalona, JD ’24
After experiencing homelessness as a teen, he became a national voice for housing reform—and a student attorney in housing court.
Aubrie Souza, JD ’22)
A Suffolk Law LIT Lab legal-tech innovator whose smart court forms helped thousands of self-represented litigants file when it mattered most.