If you follow my Twitter feed (@MAJGrimes), you noticed that yesterday was another leadership discussion. This one was a little bit different than our others because the Graduate Course met as a whole (without or foreign and sister-service officers) and heard from three senior Army commanders. This was possible because the JAG School (officially, The Judge Advocate General’s Legal Center and School) is this week hosting a Senior Officer Legal Orientation (SOLO). This is something that happens here several times a year; new battalion and brigade commanders are brought in to talk about the legal issues they can expect to face as senior unit commanders and to talk about the legal resources available to them (primarily, what their Judge Advocates can do for them). There is a separate series of legal briefings given to general officers as well – you’d be hard pressed to find a military legal agency in any service or military around the world more closely tied to our ground force commanders.

Three members of the current SOLO gave up an afternoon yesterday to meet with the Graduate Course to talk about what they expect from their Judge Advocates and what we can expect from them in return. This was a particularly useful session for us because of the close relationship Judge Advocates have with the units and commanders they support. Getting a chance to explicitly discuss what those expectations are will help prepare us to be useful and productive members of the team as soon as we get to our next assignments. (For me, going back to the Trial Defense Service, it was useful to hear these commanders’ perspectives on military justice and what they see the role of TDS being.) Most of these comments apply most directly to Judge Advocates assigned to Brigade Combat Teams or separate Brigade-sized units, but these are great things for all of us to keep in mind. Here are the high points:

The Role of the Judge Advocate
- The JA is a member of the special staff (with the Command Sergeant Major and the Chaplain); this means you’re a Soldier first – so be present (and visible to the unit) and lead by example.
- Be professional and loyal – loyalty to the nation, the Army, the unit, and the commander – in that order!
- Keep your knowledge current (both professional and situational – current events, etc.); help the commander ‘connect the dots.’
- Train and mentor subordinates; seek professional mentorship for yourself (have a ‘technical’—i.e. JAG Corps—mentor).
- Take part in unit training and Officer Professional Development programs.
- Be responsive to the commander (everyone else is going to)! You shouldn’t be a phone call away; the commander should be able to ‘reach out and touch’ the JA.
- Think flexibly and understand “the fiber of the organization” (i.e. its mission and its Soldiers) when giving advice.
- Don’t burn bridges.
- Be useful to the unit by understanding and modeling officership [a topic I’ve talked about before], particularly for junior officers.
- Work hard!

What the JA can expect from the Commander
- Mentorship – you are a Soldier and an officer; the Commander should make you a better one.
- Resources – offices, personnel, funding, etc.; just make sure to ask for what you need to succeed.
- The JA should have open access and open communications with the Commander; there should be candor on both sides.
- The commander should make timely decisions. [One of our panelists said his practice is to “not go home until [his] inbox is empty.”]
- The commander should help the JA feel like a part of the organization. (This can be a concern for us just because we’re scarce; we make up about 1 in every 300 Soldiers, so it is not uncommon to feel like an outsider when we first join a new unit.)
- In writing your performance evaluation, the Commander should not use you to make other look better just because you’re a JA; you’ll get a fair shot, just like everyone else.

Finally, two things were, personally, pretty satisfying to hear. First was an acknowledgement that the JAG Corps has done a good job of bridging the culture divide that separated us from much of the Army 5, 10, or 15 years ago. It used to be the case that many members of the ‘rest’ of the Army thought of Judge Advocates as second-class Soldiers. We’ve worked hard to increase our competence in Soldier skills—giving us a better understanding of our clients and, in the process, making us better, more useful advisors. The second was the Commanders’ brief discussion of military justice and the role of the TDS attorney. There seemed to be a pretty uniform belief in the appropriateness and usefulness of the military justice system (which they said was reflective of their peers) and they said they appreciated the role that TDS attorneys play, though they weren’t always going to see eye-to-eye with us on particular cases.

Though much of the advice given was, understandably, particular to the three colonels who met with us, yesterday’s panel discussion was another step in getting us ready to get back out there and continue to make contributions to the Army. The common thread between the three of them, and running throughout our discussion, was the fact that Jas are professionals – both as officer and as attorneys. They expect us to respect that role, to embrace it, and to life and perform like professionals. Hopefully this is something we’re all trying to do anyway!