Utah's Tactics for Getting the JAG Job of Your Dreams

I hope this finds everyone well. I thought I would take 66th anniversary of true American heroes (along with the Brits, Canadians, and French) airdropping over and storming the beaches of Normandy to similarly launch a textual assault on the blogosphere.

Things at Nellis remain busy. Despite the workload, the outstanding JAGs and paralegals here truly make the job bearable on its very worst days and a lot of damn fun on the best days. While it is hard to get a better location than Las Vegas (notwithstanding the fact that the temperatures are back to clearing 110 degrees on a regular basis; I'm considering using Kelvin instead of Fahrenheit as my basis for temperature measurement) I remain certain that it is the people, and to a slightly lesser extent the work product, that make any given JAG assignment. While my posts would no doubt involve significantly more references to hunting moose were I stationed at Minot or Malmstrom, I have little doubt I would still be loving life if I had the same cast of characters currently making up USAFWC/JA. 

It has been quite a while that I have written a post directly relevant for the incoming or aspiring Air Force Judge Advocates out there and I figure I am due. Allow me to first disclaim how I am not an expert on JAG accessions nor am I affiliated in anyway with the official decision making process. These are merely the personal considerations of a junior JAG whose only expertise is the good fortune he had to be selected in 2007.

I want to cover the two most common questions I get from aspiring and incoming JAGs: 1) Where do I wanted to be stationed?; 2) How do I improve my chances for selection?

Where do I want to be stationed? 

The most common mistake made in arriving to an answer to this question, and one I initially made myself, is to base your analysis exclusively on geography. Obviously, the location of your base is important. That said, it should not be your only consideration. As I mentioned above, I love my job because of the work I do and the people I do it with. The fact that I live in the deliriously over-hyped city of Las Vegas is merely the icing to the cake.

While the hotels are pager friendly, there is a reason these three wolves only spent 48 hours in this town. It's the same reason people visit, but do not reside in, Disney World. You can ask Carlos in a few years what he thinks about growing up here.

The most important thing to determine is what you really want to do in the JAG Corps. Prosecute courts? Environmental or Labor Law? Operations Law? When you can answer that question, you can start selectively picking bases that will give you the greatest opportunity to work in that area. It goes without saying that your first two assignments are going to expose you to everything, whether you like it or not. That is the whole point of the first four years. That said, most base legal offices have an inevitable concentration on something due to the mission they support. Nellis is heavy on Military Justice with a dynamic Operations Law workload. Other bases will have a different mix. If you know what you want to do, talk to JAX and learn about the bases have a greater practice emphasis in that area.

How do I improve my chances for selection?

This is the $64,000 question for many. Law students/graduates from schools that have a heavy law firm presence at On-Campus Interviewing each Fall and Spring learn the inflexible, albeit comfortingly predictable, requirements for Big Law. Top 20%, Law Review/Journal, Moot Court, etc, etc. This is also why JAG applicants tend to flip out. There is no set cut off or requirement for the JAG Corps. The official materials talk about the "full person concept," in all of its patent ambiguity, and the JAG Corps absolutely lives up to it with our selections.

JAGs resumes are diverse. We come from a variety of schools, perhaps the one institution that truly does not give a flying shit what insanely arbitrary ranking system Bob Morse at US News World Report invents (that said, #21 this year! Go Illini!).

This year, we'll rank law schools based on the attractiveness of the student body, the types of cars driven by the faculty, and, of course, the volume of books in the law library that no one will ever, ever, read.

That said, the JAGs at my level that I interact with have graduated with strong GPAs and were moot court/law review members. Almost all have a strong litigation/court interest and focused on classes that prepared them for the court room: evidence, criminal law & procedure, trial advocacy, pre-trial advocacy, etc. For those that came in through the Direct Appointment Program, the strong majority of us were interns with the 2L Internship Program. As a group, we believe strongly in what we do, both as Air Force officers and attorneys. Perhaps most importantly, we are in the Air Force because it was the #1 thing we wanted to with our law careers coming out of law school. Many, to include myself, turned down law firm positions to accept their commissions (remember, this is before the recession).

Beyond class selections and transcripts, factors that are often a fait accompli by the time one is applying, the single biggest variable (again, in my totally unofficial opinion) is the SJA interview. The style, manner, and substance of these interviews varies entirely on the SJA conducting them, so I truly cannot comment on these in any meaningful way. What I can offer, however, is the biggest mistakes I see routinely made.

The dozens of half-baked "get a law job" books out there, a number only multiplying due to the recession, always speak ad nauseam about researching the law firm/company as the base of your successful interview. An obvious, but valid, point.

 

 

"Hey, I bet this is how Utah got the dumb title for this post."  

Just because the advice given in these tomes is directed toward the private sector does not mean their principles do not apply to us Feds. If you are applying to be an officer and attorney in the US Air Force, you should probably know about the law firm to which you are applying. Know about the Air Force and the mission we perform as the air component of the US Armed Forces. Know the rank structure, both officer and enlisted. Know what the JAG Corps does. The JAG Corps is an unique of a legal practice setting as they come. I've seen too many applicants that seem to think we are some Department of Justice branch that happens to wear uniforms.

More like a branch of the Department of Handsome. 

A JAG's primary function as an officer in the Air Force is the support the war fighting mission through our professional capabilities. Some officers fly planes. Others deal with analysis of intelligence. Others lead combat search and rescue operations. We happen to provide legal counsel to the commanders that are making the decisions. Understanding this role is critical. Even more critical is knowing why you want to be a part of it and what you can offer. Being able to answer the "why JAG?" and "why the Air Force?" is often incredibly difficult.

Also important is comprehension of what being an officer entails in the practical, vice philosophical, sense. Know that you will be expected to meet and exceed USAF physical training standards. Know that we move every two years to new bases, sometimes to locations we want nothing to do with, and that we change positions within our offices even more frequently.  Know that we are at war (yes, it is still going on over there) and that JAGs deploy with increasing regularity. If you are a fat tub of goo (there is a reason you submit a picture with your application), or you will be shocked and appalled to hear you will be getting a 6-month all expense paid vacation to Kandahar or Bagram, complete with nightly mortar/rocket attacks, this might not be the job for you.

Things like dress and appearance are taken very seriously. Conservative hair and clothing at the interview is a must. You will be interviewing with a Colonel (or Lieutenant Colonel), a rank that means entire rooms of people stand and come to the position of attention when they enter and just about everyone on the installation refers to them as "sir" or "ma'am." In other words, when dealing with a high ranking officer of an institution that has a systemic obsession with customs and courtesies, it behooves applicants to act accordingly. 

Some other good unofficial resources for the JAG hopefuls:

Military Law thread on Top Law Schools:
http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=31543

JAG thread on Air Force OTS:
http://airforceots.com/portal/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewforum&f=51

As a random aside, I had mah eyeballs checked at the 7 month mark from my PRK corrective surgery. I'm at 20/15 in both eyes now and that is totally vassup.

 Bruno agrees. Totally vassup. 

That is all Utah has for now. The rest of June and July is going to be pretty rough at work, I'll get back posting in late July.