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I recently received a letter from R. James Nicholson, Secretary of Veterans Affairs, alerting me that a Veteran's Affairs employee took home some electronic data. The data was stolen when the employee's home was burglarized.

In light of this event, and others reported in newspapers and on television about personal information being lost or stolen, I realized how critical it is for members of the Armed Forces - especially those from the reserve components - to have a good understanding of identity theft.

Personal data, especially one's Social Security number, bank account or credit card number, telephone calling card number, and other valuable identifying data, can be used by a thief for personal profit at the expense of a service member.

If a civilian lawyer has a member of the Armed Forces as a client, and he or she has lost personal information or identification (or if it has been stolen), taking certain steps quickly can minimize the potential for identity theft.

If the client has had an incidental theft, such as a car stolen with an old bank statement in it, you should recommend precautionary steps, such as a fraud alert at the client's bank, without canceling all accounts.

If you suspect that any personal information was lost or stolen, you should recommend putting a fraud alert on all bank accounts and credit cards. This informs retailers accepting payment or opening accounts that they should be extra careful and verify all information from the person associated with the account.

Clients who pay by check or credit card will have to show additional forms of identification and possibly answer questions about identity at every transaction. This can be a hassle, but is well worth the time if there is any chance that lost or stolen information could be used in identity theft.

You can also recommend putting security alerts on all bank or credit card ac-counts, asking financial institutions to notify clients at a specific telephone numbers if anyone requests copies or additional charge cards on existing accounts.

Although there is some risk associated with leaving the accounts open, a client may want to place a watch on them rather than close them immediately. Terminating longstanding credit may hamper a client's ability to open new lines of credit later.

A recent change in the law allows people to get free reports from each of the three major credit bureaus every year. Your clients should take advantage of this and order reports, just to view all active accounts (even you, as a legal adviser, should do this.)

Clients should check for factual errors and any odd activity or accounts that may indicate identity theft. If they are not sure whether they are victims of identify theft, but want to have some peace of mind, they should get copies of their credit reports.

To order a free annual report from one or all of the national consumer reporting companies, clients should visit www.annualcreditreport.com or call toll-free (877) 322-8228. The consumer reporting companies should not be contacted individually.

The Federal Trade Commission advises people who order their free annual credit reports online to be sure to correctly spell www.annualcreditreport.com or link to it from the FTC Web site at www.consumer.gov/idtheft/ to avoid being misdirected to other Web sites that offer supposedly free reports, but only with the purchase of other products.

More extreme measures are called for if actual credit cards, checkbooks or identification are stolen. There is a good chance those documents can be used in identity theft, so it is important to recommend quick action and account closures.

When clients open new accounts, they should include passwords, but should avoid using mothers' maiden names, birth dates, the last four digits of Social Security or telephone numbers, or series of consecutive numbers. These are commonly used and easily guessed by would-be thieves.