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| JAG Newswire > Commentary - Our Year in Review...Our Way Ahead |
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Our Year in Review...Our Way Ahead
Posted 1/4/2012 Updated 2/15/2012
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Commentary by Lt Gen Richard C. Harding
The Judge Advocate General
1/4/2012 - Washington D.C. -- As I look back on 2011, it was a remarkable year for our Corps. I am extremely proud of your efforts, despite significant fiscal and manpower challenges, to deliver first class legal services to our clients in a timely and efficient manner. You can be justifiably proud of your accomplishments...they are many:
· We provided support to military operations world-wide... including Afghanistan, Japan, Libya, and in Iraq as our mission ended there. In all, 340 TJAGC personnel (218 JAGs and 126 paralegals) spent over 46,000 days deployed in support of contingency operations ... defending the Nation's security.
· We made significant progress in reducing Article 15 and Court-Martial processing times. We have not yet reached our celerity goals, but we made significant progress in 2011 ... improving the Air Force's state of military discipline.
· We trained 7-level paralegals in how the draft wills and teamed them with attorneys to improve how we generate these important legal instruments ... building stronger paralegals.
· Nearly 100% of the JAG Corps' members have individual training plans to chart a better course for each member's professional development ... building a stronger Corps.
· We devoted many hours to web-based training in legal assistance to improve the caliber of our legal assistance practice and stood up a legal assistance a legal assistance division in the NCR as well as a CLE requirement to ensure all practitioners continue to improve their legal assistance skills ... building stronger legal assistance skills.
· We improved our Article 6 inspection process by: synchronizing inspections with the IG, modeling our Article 6 inspections into a 2-part process, and developing a single checklist for all to follow. In addition, we stood up an Article 6 inspection division and conducted the first two part Article 6 inspections ... a significant step in the evolution of the JAG Corps.
· We implemented major changes in the CFE&TP and developed a model resume identifying and highlighting the professional knowledge, skills, and leadership abilities of our paralegals...building stronger paralegals.
· We stood up a field certification process to encourage better development of trial skills among our young judge advocates ... building stronger judge advocates.
· We did all of this while you continued to excel in specialty practice areas such as procurement, environmental, labor, and international and operations law and while shaping and developing the law in highly technical fields such as space and cyber.
As Secretary Donley said at KEYSTONE in October, "...your contributions are mission essential to helping our Airmen protect America." This praise and our success is not a product of happenstance or mere good fortune. It is built by your hard work, dedication, and sacrifice. You have earned it, case-by-case...client-by-client.
2012 promises to be an equally exciting year for our Corps, as we continue to support the Air Force mission, strengthen the pillars of our Foundational Leadership model, and grow even stronger as a Corps. I am honored to lead you. Happy New Year!
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