Judge Advocate, General

You are the junior attorney in the Army's law firm, and your clients range from the private who caught an Article 15 to the brigade commander who needs a LOAC brief before the operation steps off. You hold a law license the Army needs and a commission you are still learning how to carry at the same time.

You arrive at the Judge Advocate General's Legal Center and School (TJAGLCS) at the University of Virginia for the Judge Advocate Officer Basic Course (JAOBC) — roughly ten weeks that cover military law fundamentals, UCMJ practice, legal assistance, claims, international law, and the garrison garrison garrison reality check before you hit your first unit. From JAOBC you slide into one of three seats at an installation legal office or a brigade/division SJA shop: trial counsel (prosecuting courts-martial and handling Article 15 appeals under AR 27-10), legal assistance attorney (wills, powers of attorney, tax preparation, family law advice, consumer protection for soldiers and their families), or administrative law attorney (boards, regulations, policy reviews, contracting questions). The unglamorous reality is that most of your first year is legal assistance and the paperwork cadence of the SJA's daily docket — you will draft more wills and process more powers of attorney than you will litigate. When you do get to courts-martial, you are the trial counsel on a special court — the hard ones go to the senior captains. The LOAC brief you give the BCT commander before a rotation is real work; so is the ROE card you helped write for it.

• 01Prosecute a special court-martial from charge sheet through sentencing — charges, motions, Article 32 preliminary hearing (where applicable), voir dire, opening/closing, and the record of trial — under the UCMJ and the Manual for Courts-Martial.
• 02Draft a legal assistance client file — will, durable power of attorney, healthcare directive, SCRA and consumer-protection review — that the client can execute and the legal assistance office supervisor can certify without rewriting.
• 03Brief a battalion or brigade commander on the Law of Armed Conflict (LOAC) and ROE using FM 6-27 as the doctrinal foundation — clear, short, actionable, and correctly distinguishing policy from law.
• 04Write a legal review of a proposed command policy, regulation, or administrative action that surfaces the risk, cites the authority, and recommends a lawful course of action in plain language the commander can act on.
• 05Conduct an Article 32 preliminary hearing or advise an investigating officer — understand the difference between the pre-MJA 2016 Article 32 and the current preliminary hearing structure, and know which applies to the case in front of you.
• 06Advise on military justice nonjudicial punishment (Article 15, AR 27-10 Chapter 3) — rights advisement, evidence standard, suspension and vacation, the soldier's appeal route, and the commander's record-keeping obligations.

• —UCMJ — Uniform Code of Military Justice (Title 10 U.S.C., Chapter 47) — the statute; read Parts I–V alongside the MCM.
• —Manual for Courts-Martial, United States (current edition) — the Rules for Courts-Martial (R.C.M.), Military Rules of Evidence (M.R.E.), and the Part IV punitive articles.
• —AR 27-10 — Military Justice — the Army's implementing regulation for UCMJ practice, NJP procedures, courts-martial administration, and JAG Corps administrative requirements.
• —FM 6-27 — The Commander's Handbook on the Law of Land Warfare — LOAC/IHL doctrine for advising commanders; paired with JP 3-60 for targeting law.
• —AR 27-20 — Claims — the authority for processing claims against and on behalf of the United States under the Federal Tort Claims Act and related statutes.
• —DA PAM 600-3 — Officer Professional Development (chapter covering 27A JAGC) — the career track, KD requirements, functional area options, and promotion-board guidance.

• —Bar admission — active and in good standing in at least one U.S. state bar before commission; maintain good standing throughout active service under AR 27-26 (Rules of Professional Conduct for Lawyers).
• —JAOBC graduate — the gate credential for the JAGC branch; the course is required before assignment to a legal office.
• —ACFT pass at the officer standard — the JAGC does not get a fitness exemption; your physical fitness record is visible on every OER profile.
• —First OER profile clean and defensible — the "most qualified" stratification in the senior rater box is the bar for the promotion board; a first-cycle OER that cannot be defended shortens the conversation at the major's board.
• —Trial counsel certification by the SJA — before you try a case alone, the senior attorney in the office certifies you as ready; do not rush it, and do not fake readiness.

• —Missing a filing deadline in a courts-martial — the R.C.M. governs timelines, the accused's speedy trial right under R.C.M. 707 is real, and a blown deadline surfaces at the Article 39(a) session in front of the military judge.
• —Giving a commander legal advice outside your competence without flagging the limits — the SJA supervises junior attorneys for a reason; the wrong answer to a contracting question or a LOAC question costs the commander more than "I need to check with my supervisor" ever would.
• —Drafting a legal assistance document — will, POA — with an error the client does not catch until a death or a deployment creates the situation it was supposed to handle. The JAGC professional responsibility standard is not lower because the client is a PFC.
• —Confusing the UCMJ punitive article with the RCM procedural requirement during a motion or a hearing — the military judge corrects it on the record, the record of trial is permanent, and the SJA reads the record.
• —Letting AR 27-26 (Rules of Professional Conduct) guidance on conflicts of interest slide because "it is a small office." The JAGC professional responsibility structure is real and the Disciplinary Appeals Committee at TJAGLCS reviews violations — a bar complaint follows you into civilian practice.

The good junior JAG officer is the one whose legal assistance clients walk out of the office with documents that actually do what they thought they signed, whose trial counsel files are clean enough that the SJA supervisor does not spend the morning correcting them, and whose LOAC brief to the battalion commander generates three good questions at the end instead of polite silence. By the 18-month mark the SJA has them on the more complex courts-martial and the brigade commander's OPORD legal annex.

You are the JAG officer the commander actually calls. At captain you are the senior litigator in the installation SJA shop and the attorney the brigade commander's staff treats as staff — not a visitor. At major you are running legal operations for a division or major command, supervising junior attorneys, and shaping the military justice and operational law posture of a formation that matters.

You return to TJAGLCS for the Judge Advocate Officer Advanced Course (JAOAC) — roughly ten weeks of advanced military justice, operational law, contract law, administrative and civil law, and the field-grade leadership fundamentals the career requires. From JAOAC you compete for one of the primary KDs: Senior Trial Counsel at an installation (trying general courts-martial, supervising junior trial counsel, running the docket), Brigade Judge Advocate (the attorney embedded with a BCT or functional brigade — one attorney, all missions, the commander's direct legal advisor on military justice, operational law, LOAC, ROE, administrative law, and anything else that walks in the door), or a specialty track billet (international law, government appellate practice, contract law, civil litigation, the Environmental Law Division, or a COCOM theater legal ops seat). The general court-martial is the senior trial counsel's main event: premeditated murder, sexual assault, drug distribution — the cases that generate Article 120 and Article 134 charges and put the accused in Leavenworth if convicted. The brigade judge advocate seat is a different weight: you are the only attorney for 3,000-5,000 soldiers, the commander relies on your judgment across every legal domain, and the SJA who supervises you is at the division or corps level and not in the same building. The major's billet puts you in the deputy SJA or staff judge advocate seat at an installation or division-level command — supervising the entire legal office, owning the docket, advising the commanding general, and running the personnel program for a bench of junior officers.

• 01Try a general court-martial — felony-level charges under Articles 118, 120, 121, 134 UCMJ — through the full litigation cycle: charging conference, Article 32 preliminary hearing, pretrial motions, voir dire, trial, findings, and sentencing — and defend the record on appeal to the Army Court of Criminal Appeals (ACCA).
• 02Serve as the brigade judge advocate — sole legal advisor for a brigade-level command — advising the commander across military justice, LOAC/ROE, administrative separations, congressional correspondence, claims, and contracting review without a supervisor in the building.
• 03Supervise and develop junior judge advocates — write defensible OERs, conduct counseling, assign appropriate cases, and push attorneys toward the qualification thresholds the SJA and the board need to see.
• 04Brief the commanding general on a legal risk assessment — proposed command policy, administrative action, operational law issue, contracting action — in ten minutes, with a written product the CG can act on the same afternoon.
• 05Draft or review a theater ROE card, targeting legal review, or LOAC compliance assessment for a real-world operation — under JP 3-60 (Targeting), the standing SROE, and FM 6-27 — with the legal analysis signed and filed before the operation steps off.
• 06Manage the installation's military justice program under AR 27-10 — docket management, records of trial, sentence computation, confinement facility coordination, appellate referral — and brief the installation's commanding general on the program's health at the quarterly review.

• —UCMJ (Title 10 U.S.C., Chapter 47) and Manual for Courts-Martial (current edition) — the MCM is the daily operating document for every courts-martial action; the R.C.M. and M.R.E. are the procedure and evidence framework you defend on the record.
• —AR 27-10 — Military Justice — the Army implementing regulation; Chapter 3 (NJP), Chapter 5 (courts-martial administration), and Chapter 10 (appellate referral) are the daily reference chapters for the senior trial counsel and SJA.
• —FM 6-27 — The Commander's Handbook on the Law of Land Warfare; JP 3-60 — Joint Targeting — the operational law and targeting doctrine pair; you advise commanders under both and the legal review of a strike or detention action cites both.
• —AR 600-20 — Army Command Policy; AR 635-200 / AR 635-8-series — Enlisted Separations; AR 600-8-24 — Officer Separations — the administrative separation statutes you use in Chapter 14, Chapter 10, and officer elimination cases.
• —AR 27-26 — Rules of Professional Conduct for Lawyers in the JAGC — your professional responsibility framework; the JAGC follows these rules and the Disciplinary Appeals Committee at TJAGLCS enforces them.
• —DA PAM 600-3 — Officer Professional Development (27A JAGC chapter); AR 600-8-29 — Officer Promotions — the promotion-board mechanics and KD requirements; OPMD publishes current board demographics and the KD gate for the major's board.

• —JAOAC graduate — the required career course gate before KD assignment and the major's board; no KD billet before JAOAC.
• —ILE / CGSC complete — resident at Fort Leavenworth or non-resident MEL-4 equivalent before the lieutenant colonel's board; the JAGC gets slates alongside the rest of the competitive category.
• —General court-martial trials of record — the major's board and the senior rater profile read the litigation record; a captain who has tried only special courts-martial without a general court-martial conviction on the docket is behind the competitive curve.
• —KD OER profile with a senior rater stratification that can survive the major's promotion board — "most qualified," bullets tied to outcomes (cases tried, clients served, soldiers retained or separated correctly, legal programs rated "outstanding"), and a senior rater narrative that names the position and the outcome.
• —Active bar membership maintained and certified per AR 27-26 — annual self-certification, CLE compliance per the admitting state's requirements, conflict-of-interest disclosures documented — no lapse in good standing on the record.

• —Failing to brief the commander on a LOAC or ROE issue before the operation because "there was no time" — the time to raise it is in the OPORD legal review, not in the ROE violation investigation six months later. The legal annex is yours to own.
• —Trying a general court-martial without the evidence foundation — a conviction that is overturned by ACCA on a Brady violation or an M.R.E. authentication gap goes back to the unit, back to the installation SJA, and back to the trial counsel's record.
• —Supervising junior attorneys by reviewing their work after the fact instead of before — a junior counsel who gives bad advice in a legal assistance appointment, or who misstates the law in a commander's legal brief, reflects on the senior attorney who did not catch it before it went out the door.
• —Letting the professional responsibility (AR 27-26) tension between representing the Army and advising a commander collapse — the JAGC attorney's client is the Army and the United States, not the individual commander. The moment that distinction blurs in a written legal review, it is in the record.
• —Ignoring the OER development requirement for junior attorneys — the JAG officer who does not write counselings, does not run an OER pre-counseling, and does not contribute to the promotion board record for junior officers on his bench is failing a core leadership obligation the SJA reads directly.

The good 27A captain is the attorney the BCT commander calls on Sunday afternoon because the answer will be correct and the risk will be honest. He has tried a general court-martial and the record is clean on appeal; he has briefed the brigade staff on ROE changes the week before a deployment; and his legal assistance clients leave with documents that work. The good 27A major is the deputy SJA who runs the docket so the SJA can be in the commanding general's conference room — the military justice program is current, the junior attorneys have counselings and OER pre-counseling on the calendar, and the installation's AR 27-10 program has been briefed to the CG within the last quarter without surprises.