About Me

I am a military law attorney who is a retired Army Judge Advocate with an extensive background in military administrative law with a particular emphasis on U.S. Army personnel law. I have the knowledge and the experience to assist Soldiers who are facing adverse actions which have the potential to severely limit or even end their Army careers. If you are currently facing an investigation, a reprimand, a referred OER or NCOER, a bar to reenlistment, or an involuntary separation action or if you have been the subject of previous adverse action such as having had an Article 15, a General Officer Memorandum of Reprimand, a negative OER or NCOER, or other unfavorable action which has harmed your career, I may be able to help you to resolve your problem and help you to continue with a successful Army career.

In addition, if you have been turned down by a promotion board, you MAY have grounds to seek reconsideration by a Special Selection Board. While the results of promotion boards are presumed to be administratively correct, there are occasionally some instances in which the denial of a promotion can be due to some administrative error. This may occur when the individual's board file was incomplete due to the omission of documents which should have been seen by the board. In other cases, the board file may have included documents which should not have been seen by the board. These are documents which should have either been entirely removed from the file or else placed in the restricted fiche due to either the provisions of Army Regulations or as a result of previous action by the Department of the Army Suitability Evaluation Board or the Army Board for the Correction of Military Records. When it can be shown that denial of promotion occurred due to such an error, it is possible to have a corrected file considered by a Special Selection Board.

This website contains descriptions of some of the types of situations which can effect a Soldier's career. These are provided as a matter of general information and should not be considered as legal advice. The facts and circumstances which pertain to each Soldier and each situation are unique and the consequences can vary to a great extent as a result of the specific and seemingly minor details of each case. No attorney can ever properly advise anyone without having had the opportunity to become fully familiar with all available relevant information as well as being able to discuss the matter with the client.

My Judge Advocate experience covered the entire spectrum from advising company commanders on legal issues that that had a direct and immediate impact on their responsibilities to the completion of actions to be signed by general officers and forwarded to Headquarters, Department of the Army for final action. All of my JAG experience was devoted to serving as a legal advisor in operational and functional units. In this capacity, I was a member of unit staffs at several levels to include battalion, brigade, and major command levels. This included three assignments as a Command Judge Advocate (senior judge advocate in the unit and personal legal advisor to the unit commander). One of these was as the Command Judge Advocate of a Civil Affairs unit which was deployed in Iraq. My responsibility in those assignments was to advise commanders and staffs on any legal issues that would arise during the course of unit operations and to ensure that all actions were conducted in accord with applicable statutory and regulatory requirements. In addition, whenever it became necessary to take any legal action on behalf of the command, I was the one who was responsible to draft and prepare the documents needed to carry out these actions and to present the views of the command in a manner which would convince higher headquarters to carry out these recommendations.

I then spent the final six years of my time in the Army assigned to the headquarters of a major command. In that capacity, I advised the Commanding General and staff, and subordinate commanders and staffs of units within this command on complex administrative law actions, and military justice matters. I provided legal advice for criminal investigations and prepared cases for trial by Courts Martial. I advised investigating officers and reviewed legal actions and prepared legal opinions for AR 15-6 Investigations, and Commander’s Inquiries. These included reviewing numerous adverse personnel actions for legal and factual sufficiency and making recommendations for disposition by the two star commander. When these actions contained substantive and procedural errors which violated applicable Army regulations, I would take due notice and either return them to the initiating headquarters for corrective action or else recommend that they should be entirely disapproved. In each and every instance, I would thoroughly review the entire record and draft a detailed summary of the case along with a review of recommendations from the subordinate commands and prepare recommendations for the appropriate disposition by the commanding general. This was a two star level command. This is the level which has final approval authority for almost all enlisted separation actions and which also has the authority to initiate officer separation actions. During the course of this assignment I also acted as either Legal Advisor (Administrative Law Judge) or Recorder (Prosecutor) for numerous administrative separation hearings. This experience helped me to gain a great deal of insight into this process and to learn how these decisions are made as well as what factors will influence the decision makers in these cases.

In addition to learning the technical aspects of statutory military law and Army Regulations, my experience has also enabled me to understand how the Army works and how these legal rules are applied in a wide variety of situations which covered the entire spectrum from routine functions in a garrison environment to the consequences of critical decisions in the course of combat and stability operations in Iraq. Since I am representing Soldiers in legal matters relating to personnel actions which have an impact on their Army careers this is an insight that they can only get from a miltary law attorney who is experienced in dealing with these situations.

In addition to my Judge Advocate experience, I have also been a Battalion  S-1. This experience provided me with extremely valuable additional insight into these types of actions and to the way in which in which these matters are ultimately resolved.