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Friday, June 05, 2009
JAG Corps recruiting Classes Balloon in Down Economy
Slightly off topic, but this was an interesting article from Law.com about the surge in applicants for the JAG Corps. Slight relevance to CAAFlog are the featured quotes and stock photo of former Navy Appellate Defense counsel, and former colleague of many of the contributors here, LCDR Jennie Goldsmith. She puts a good face on the JAG Corps--glad Grover or Fulton didn't get that recruiting job they were angling for.
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13 comments:
Join the JAG Corps and practice law 50% of the time!
Join the JAG Corps and practice law 50% of the time!
If you add those last two posts together, you get to practice law 100% of the time.
But if you join the JAG corps, and become an SJA, you will practice law only 10% of the time.
One of my instructors at the AFJAGS composed a song (which I think was called "The Battle Hymn of the JAG Corps") to be sung to the tune of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic," which included this passage
To say that we're not lawyerly
Sticks mightily in our craw
Our respect for all things legal
In fact approaches awe
And when we leave the service
We may even practice law!
For we are mighty JAGs!
I always thought that the best thing of going into the military was to be an officer first; then, only second, your particular work speciality.
well, this article seems to confirm the Army's $65k signing bonus.
BLUE TO GREEN!
I've seen Marines in court and I think it is best that they are infantry officers first.
If you were to axe all of the billets that practiced no law at all (flag loops, detailers, "transformation" people, COs, XOs, computer people, etc, think of all the savings there -- there is no reason to have a lawyer in those billets.
"I've seen Marines in court and I think it is best that they are infantry officers first."
I've actually heard that next to the AF, the Marines have outstanding JAGs. I've heard their panels are great too.
Not so much the Army and Navy. Although I heard the Army is starting to follow the AF.
For example, to be a DC you have to be a good TC first. That is to say every DC in the AF was at least an outstanding trial lawyer on the other side of the fence.
However I've heard in other services people are thrown in Defense with little or no experience.
You do not have to have been a TC first to be a good DC.
I agree with Cossio that you should be a trial counsel first, so that you learn what the hell you are doing in a courtroom before you have to sit next to an accused who assumes (frequently incorrectly) that you know what the hell you are doing in a courtroom. I cringe when I think about my first contested case as a TC. My own boss who second chaired me objected to one of my cross-examination questions. It would have been per se IAC for me to have started as a DC.
Note to anyone who may want to hire me in the future as a CDC: I got better, I swear.
The difference is that SDCs have more time to train DC than STC or COJs often do (and often more experience than either).
I know plenty of very good DC who were never TC, but were able to benefit from and learn quickly from watching other good DC and from their SDC.
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