Everything You Always Wanted to Know About JAG (But Were Afraid to Ask)

As this blog has a fairly decent following among JAG hopefuls or the OTS bound, I thought I would address a few job specific things that I have picked up since starting at Nellis.

Something good about the job that you don't learn at JASOC:

How awesome it is to wear your Airman Battle Uniform (ABU) 4x a week. Wearing digital camouflage starts out as a novelty. It almost is like wearing a costume for the first few months. After that, it becomes routine. What does not become routine is how great it is to wear what are essentially functional pajamas to work. It does not wrinkle or stain. It does not need to be ironed. It has pen pockets all over the place. After a dozen or so washes, the fabric becomes softer. I will be the first to note that the Air Force Uniform Boards can come up with some absolutely asinine decisions, e.g., walking with a cell phone - okay, walking with a Bluetooth - verboten. That said, nice work on these.

It's like a pixelated camouflage Snuggie except way less creepy

Something bad about the job you don't learn at JASOC:

The JAG Phone. Every week at my office one unfortunate JAG is the "On-Call" JAG. Much like in the medical profession in which a physician is "on-call," we always have an attorney available 24 hours a day in the event of an emergency. This is the most literal manifestation of the Sword of Damocles I think a junior attorney can experience.

Note the sword.

If anything goes wrong after duty hours and you are the possessor of this phone, it is up to you to figure it out. Every hour of every night and weekend. While we do have a safety net, i.e., the other JAGs in the office, it is still an experience. I spent the first night just staring at the cell phone, willing it not to ring.

The On-Call Phone is actually just a cell phone but this is a way better mental picture.

Thankfully my week with the phone was very low threat. No terrorists trying to crash the gate or planes falling out of the sky.

Something good about the job that you don't learn (or at least cannot appreciate) at JASOC:

You are going to be exposed to a wide variety of areas of law and are going to be exercising a great deal of influence in those areas. I spent yesterday morning working with our Security Forces (SF, our cops, analogous to the Army's Military Police) and our Office of Special Investigations (OSI, a CIA/FBI hybrid, analogous to the Army's Criminal Investigative Division, CID) on matters pertaining to an upcoming court martial. My afternoon was working with our contracting squadron, resolving a possible violation of the Federal Acquisitions Regulation.

This morning I drafted a will and medical power of attorney for a deploying Airman and will head to the District of Nevada Federal Court to prosecute shoplifting civilians this afternoon.

I rarely have a dull day.

Something bad about the job that you don't learn (or at least cannot appreciate) at JASOC:

You are going to be exposed to a wide variety of areas of law and are going to be exercising a great deal of influence in those areas. Many of these areas will not have been covered by law school, Bar/Bri, or JASOC and will come to you with little, if any, advance warning. So, good luck with that.

You will rarely have a dull day.