Legal Careers: JAG (Judge Advocate General)

I promised a few days ago to provide some information on becoming a military lawyer. So, here goes:

Noun

1.

judge advocate general - the senior legal advisor to a branch of the military

Here's how the Office of the Judge Advocate General for the Canadian Forces describes itself:

"Whether providing legal advice at one of the many bases and wings across the country, defending an accused at a court martial, teaching courses to other CF members, or advising a commanding officer in an operational theatre, the legal officers and staff of the Office of the Judge Advocate General constantly strive to uphold the ethical and legal principles established by both the Canadian Forces and the Government of Canada."

According to the JAG website, "The Office of the JAG comprises 114 regular force legal officer positions and 64 reserve force legal officer positions. The regular force legal officers are employed throughout the CF, in Canada and abroad...The JAG is statutorily responsible to the Minister of National Defence and 'accountable' for the legal advice given to the Chief of the Defence Staff, the military chain of command, and to the Deputy Minister. This clear accountability structure was designed to enhance the integrity of the Office of the JAG and ensure the independence of the JAG from the chain of command in the provision of legal advice in all areas including military justice."

Those that join up "join from a variety of backgrounds — some with no previous military experience; some with prior regular or reserve force experience; some through internal career change programs. They must all be members in good standing of a provincial law society in Canada, meet Canadian Forces medical standards and successfully complete the 14-week Basic Officer Training Course before they can become a legal officer."

"Legal officers come from a variety of backgrounds but most share some common characteristics. First and foremost is a desire to serve Canada as a member of the Canadian Forces - they are all commissioned, uniformed officers joining in the rank of Captain with the opportunity to rise to the rank of Brigadier-General (although the current JAG is a Major-General). As regular force members of the Canadian Forces, they accept that service may involve relocation upon receiving a new posting and periods of separation from their families when duty calls."

"If you want to become a legal officer in the Office of the JAG you will have to join the Canadian Forces and go through the same selection process as all applicants who volunteer to enroll in the military. Upon acceptance to and enrolment in the Canadian Forces, you would be required to undergo Basic Officer Training and official language training (depending on your abilities in the official languages) prior to being posted for employment and further professional development as a legal officer in the Office of the JAG."

Pay and allowances: "Legal officers are specialist officers and are generally paid on a different scale ^B than general service officers. Legal officer pay is linked to that of the Department of Justice with a 6.5% “military factor” added on to recognize the exigencies of military life."

Pension: "The Canadian Forces Superannuation Act guarantees a pension to personnel who have served in the Canadian Forces for at least twenty years. This pension is based on an average of your wages for the best five years of your career. The pension begins at 40% after twenty years service and maximizes at 70% after 35 years of service."

These links are interesting:

Office of the JAG Organizational Chart ^C
JAG offices across Canada ^C
JAG offices around the world ^C

It looks as though the JAG is separated into various areas of law (Prosecution, Defence, Military Justice and Admin Law, etc.).

If you want to learn more about Military Justice in general, go here: http://www.forces.gc.ca/jag/military_justice/default_e.asp. It gives a good overview.

There is a short entry on Wikipedia that gives some current stats: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judge_Advocate_General_(Canada)

And for those of you who want to steep yourselves in JAG culture:

If any of you have further information about what being JAG is like, or how one becomes JAG, please feel free to provide us some information through a comment. Thanks.

I was in the military, and went through boot camp, and engineering boot camp. It was pretty brutal. I heard that Officer Training boot camp is a lot lighter, but I might be wrong. Anyone dispute that claim?

In any case, it looks like a pretty interesting career choice.

Graduate Studies in Law: LLM GUIDE

I just came across a fairly useful website (LLM GUIDE - http://www.llm-guide.com/canada) for those interested in pursuing an LL.M. (Master of Laws). For those of you who are unititiated, a Master of Laws allows you to teach in law school. Many consider it the equivalent of a Ph.D., as some consider the LL.B. equivalent to graduate school (i.e. the MBA). In any case, you might find it to be interesting reading, whether you are serious about considering an LL.M. or not. I will write more on this blog about the LL.M. some time soon.

More on the Law School Rankings Game

For those readers really interested in the debate over law school rankings and some of the alternative ranking methodologies offered by critics of the U.S. News and World Report rankings, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has a site listing and explaining some of the alternative approaches offered. This list is available online here.

My favorite? The Law School Ranking Game of the Indiana University School of Law-Bloomington. The game allows you to change the weighting of ranking criteria. This, of course, can alter the rankings significantly. And the weighting of criteria gets back to a point I made in my previous post on the U.S. News and World Report rankings--namely, that those rankings give great weight to peer evaluations, which means that a law school is rated "good" if other schools think it is good. Which might be valid (see my previous post), but is not, I expect, what many people think those rankings are based on.

Legal Careers: JAG - "You Can't Handle the Truth"

It was a legal movie weekend for me (and for my wife - nice for a change). We watched A Few Good Men yesterday. I haven't seen that movie since it came out in 1992. Quite a cast - Tom Cruise, Demi Moore, Jack Nicholson, Kevin Bacon, Keifer Sutherland, Cuba Gooding Jr.

When I saw it in 1992, it probably made an impression on me because I was a big Jack Nicholson fan. Who wouldn't get excited by his speach which he was under examination by the Tom Cruise character. "You Can't Handle the Truth" - man, that was cool. But, all of the legal nuances would have gone right over my head at that time. This time around, I actually understood what was going on (for the most part - the dialogue and plot are relatively complex). I still had some difficulty understanding a lot of the lingo, even though I did a stint in the Military in my more youthful years.

What I found fascinating this time around was the role and lifestyle and particular job description of JAG lawyers. JAG stands for Judge Advocate General, something most of us are unfamiliar with, except those gals that like to drool over the T.V. show JAG (which I could only stand to watch for about 15 minutes one time).

I thought it would be a good idea to do a little research on how to become a JAG in Canada. So, I'll try to do that tomorrow and post what I have found. If you know anything about it, please feel free to post your info in a comment here. Thanks.

For those who loved the movie, I give you the best part. For those who haven't seen it, please skip this part:

Jessep: You want answers?
Kaffee: I think I'm entitled.
Jessep: You want answers?!
Kaffee: I want the truth!
Jessep: You can't handle the truth!
Jessep: Son, we live in a world that has walls, and those walls have to be guarded by men with guns. Who's gonna do it? You?! You, Lieutenant Weinberg?! I have a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom. You weep for Santiago and you curse the Marines. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know: that Santiago's death, while tragic, probably saved lives. And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives! You don't want the truth because deep down in places you don't talk about at parties, you want me on that wall! You need me on that wall! We use words like honor, code, loyalty. We use these words as the backbone of a life spent defending something. You use them as a punchline. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom that I provide, and then questions the manner in which I provide it! I would rather you just said, "Thank you," and went on your way. Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a weapon and stand a post. Either way, I don't give a damn what you think you are entitled to!
Kaffee: Did you order the Code Red?
Jessep: I did the job I was sent to do--
Kaffee: Did you order the Code Red?!
Jessep: (shouting) You're goddamn right I did!!
[stunned silence]
Kaffee: Please the court, I suggest the members be dismissed, so that we can move to an immediate article 39A session. The witness has rights.

I also wouldn't mind talking about the Code Red thing. I experienced that in the Military, and can give some personal accounts. But I also wonder what the current status on Code Red activities is, both in the USA and Canada.

Law Schools and the Rankings Game

My apologies to readers for not posting more frequently lately. There are many things worth talking about on this blog, but only limited time. And only one blogger.

Today's topic of choice is the subject of law school rankings, and in particular the annual rankings published by U.S. News and World Report. There is a lot of traffic on the internet about this, and a number of law professors who weigh in regularly on the subject, including Brian Leiter of the University of Texas at Austin, David Bernstein of George Mason University School of Law, and Tom Bell of Chapman University School of Law. There is also a very good article on the subject in the fall 2006 issue of preLaw. I recommend it for reading by any new or future law student. Unfortunately, that issue of preLaw is not currently available online, but the preLaw website is located here.

Much of the dialogue over law school rankings goes something like this:

(1) Most law schools say the rankings are bad, in part because they encourage schools to value their performance based on various proxy factors (e.g., size of library holdings or student-faculty ratio), rather than "actual" performance or quality of education.

(2) But often schools trumpet their success in the U.S. News rankings, even if they have been critical of them.

(3) So the rankings are not as useful as they might seem, and many schools are hypocritical about the process and are in fact damaging the quality of legal education by paying attention to them.

Here are my two cents:

(1) Whenever you try to measure an intangible by using objective (or even subjective) proxy values, you get distortion. You see it in all facets of life, from grades in school to job promotions. And in fact it is one of the most challenging aspects of law itself: to come up with legal rules that do not offer loopholes--that is, rules that do not inadvertently incentivize or permit unwanted behavior or results.

This of course oversimplifies the matter, and yet it is worth bearing in mind, especially since the alternative--having no measures of performance or ranking--is not very attractive, either. Without any rankings, are law schools going to be somehow more noble and work more for the public good, or are they going to be less accountable and more inefficient? I tend to think the latter. And this is the reason that some commentators, including Professor Leiter and others, have focused on trying to come up with other, ostensibly better, measures than the U.S. News rankings.

(2) In chasing the U.S. News rankings, or any rankings, law schools risk sacrificing their missions for a rise in the rankings. Some schools probably do this, while some admirably resist temptation. But again, this goes back to making sure your proxies are as good as they can be. If the proxies are good, then the ill effects of chasing rankings are minimized.

(3) Based on my own study of the rankings, the U.S. News rankings put great weight on what peers at other law schools think of a particular law school--this constitutes about 25% of a school's final score. Personally, I find this troubling. On the one hand, these peers are supposedly people who should know, since law schools are their business. But on the other hand, there is some troubling circularity to concluding that a school is good because a lot of people say it's good.

Specifically, doesn't this heavily weighted subjective factor lead to reputational lag? Aren't some schools likely overrated due to their prestige amongst other law schools, while others who offer very good legal education but promote themselves poorly remain underrated? And once people's minds in the legal academy are made up, isn't it hard to change these perceptions, no matter what you do? It's like going back to your 10th high school reunion: you may be very successful, but to many people in the room, you're still just a nerd.

Add to this the fact that scores regarding facilities and student-faculty ratios are only a small percentage of a school's overall score, and the U.S. News rankings start to look a lot like a popularity contest. But oddly enough, it's a contest that does add accountability. Perhaps, then, it comes down to adjusting the factors looked at and the weight given to them.

These are just a few of my thoughts. I'd like to hear what others think as well.

Law Movies: Wall Street

Just finished watching Wall Street, an Oliver Stone film, starring Charlie Sheen and Michael Douglas. It also has Martin Sheen (as Charlie's father) and Daryl Hannah.

Great movie. Top notch. It's from 1987, but I think it was way ahead of its time. I've been wanting to see it for a long time. Although it's all about Wall Street, the New York Stock Exchange, Money, Money, Money, it is a fascinating, microscopic, look at the rise of white collar crime in the 1980's.

I have seen a number of colleagues, and have interviewed with a number of "big-time" lawyers who fit the mold of Gordon Gecko (Michael Douglas) and Bud Fox (Charlie Sheen). Looking for that pie in the sky opportunity to stomp on somebody else, to take short-cuts and get to the top faster than the next guy. Willing to smudge the books to make themselves look better than the guy in the next office. How many times I have seen somebody pad their hours so that they might one day become partner, so that they might one day be able to look out the window of their cab, and feel justified in their smugness. And I haven't even been a member of the bar for very long.

Bud: How much is enough? Gekko: It's not a question of enough, pal. It's a zero sum game, somebody wins, somebody loses. Money itself isn't lost or gained its simple transferred from one perception to another.

Hey, if that's you, have fun. It's not me. Some join the club to kiss their way to the top. But, some do it because they are looking towards the greater good. I like to think I am in the latter category. But, at the same time, it's not easy. I worked nearly 12 hours today. Why? Because I wanted to make more money? No. It was because I couldn't figure out how to close some bloody real estate files so that I could actually report to our client and actually transfer our fees from our trust account to our general account. That is reality for me today. But, I could leave work feeling good about myself, because I was trying my best to be honest and true to myself, and to my clients.

The best line of the film for me came from Bud's dad (Martin Sheen):

Carl Fox: Stop going for the easy buck and start producing something with your life. Create, instead of living off the buying and selling of others.

Amen to that. Amen to creating something great, something beautiful, something that belongs to me.

Lou: The main thing about money, Bud, is that it makes you do things you don't want to do.

The film was also fascinating, given the garbage that is continuing today in Corporate America (and Canada) with the various corporate criminals being nabbed daily, and finally actually going to jail.

Enough rhetoric for tonight. I hope it sparks something in you, positive or negative. Feel free to comment.

Law Schools: Links to all Canadian Law Schools

Need to do some surfing research on Canadian Law Schools? Here are all of the links:

University of Alberta Faculty of Law
University of British Columbia Faculty of Law
University of Calgary Faculty of Law
Dalhousie Law School
University of Manitoba Faculty of Law
Faculty of Law McGill University (Faculté de droit Université de McGill)
Faculté de droit de l'Université de Moncton
University of New Brunswick Law School
University of Ottawa Faculty of Law (Université d'Ottawa Faculté de droit)
Queen's University Faculty of Law
University of Saskatchewan College of Law
University of Toronto Faculty of Law
University of Victoria Faculty of Law
University of Western Ontario Faculty of Law
University of Windsor Faculty of Law
Osgoode Hall Law School, York University

Law School: Official Guide to Canadian Law Schools

If you want a great read about various stats on different law schools in Canada, visit the Official Guide to Canadian Law Schools, published on LSAC's website. It's really complete. I have never come across this resource before, so I am wondering how new it is. Good stuff!

Note that the next LSAT Dates and Deadlines are as follows:

Saturday, December 2, 2006

Monday, December 4, 2006*+

Saturday, February 10, 2007*

Monday, February 12, 2007*+

* This test is NONDISCLOSED. Persons who take a nondisclosed test receive only their scores. They do not receive their test questions, answer key, or individual responses.
+ This test is for Saturday Sabbath observers only.

Visit LSAC.org for full information.

Also, check through the archives of this blog for LSAT information, help and links.

More Law School Curricular Ruminations

Almost as stunning as Harvard Law School's (HLS) October 6, 2006, announcement that it is changing its first year curriculum is the relative lack of internet chatter about it since then. Things seemed to have peaked right after the announcement, and then dropped off precipitously. Maybe people voiced their opinions and then moved on to other subjects. Announcements and posts on the subject include HLS's official announcement, my October 9, 2006 post, a blog post by John Palfrey of HLS's Berkman Center, and comments on the Volokh Conspiracy.

But I keep thinking about it. And more to the point, I keep thinking about the current 1L curriculum at US law schools. Here are some of my thoughts and questions:

• What should be different in the current 1L curriculum, if anything? Did HLS get it right? Wrong? Miss the point?
• What courses among the standard 1L courses are perceived by students and law school grads as the most or least helpful or essential?
• What about legal research and writing courses? Should law schools teach their students such practical skills in distinct courses, or should they incorporate this sort of skills-building into other courses within the 1L and upperclass curriculum?
• By the same token, is HLS's new 1L course on legislation and regulations (see HLS's 10/6/06 announcement linked to above) something that should be in the first year curriculum of law schools? Or is the price of a separate course (taking time out of other 1L courses such as Torts or Contracts) simply too dear?

On that last point, it should be noted that a shift toward teaching more code-driven law has already occurred within some law school casebooks (and their supplements), at least to some extent. Look, for example, at a 1L Contracts casebook from 20 or 30 years ago versus a current casebook edition such as the one I use (Randy Barnett, Contracts: Cases and Doctrine (3d ed. 2003)). Chances are the new book, like Barnett's, includes significant use of the UCC. That's not to say, of course, that there shouldn't be more changes to the 1L curriculum, but it is to say that there has been some change in teaching focus in recent decades.

In any event, I would appreciate any comments readers might have on this subject.

Admissions: The Importance of where you do your undergrad degree

I had a call from a reader today who was considering transferring from her local, traditional university program to a long-distance learning program offerred through Athabasca University. Her question was whether such a move would be detrimental to her application success rate at various law schools. This is a good question, and I was glad to receive it.

From what I have heard, most, if not all law schools will not base your acceptance upon which university you have graduated from. However, I could be wrong about that. I would really appreciate any insight from any of you out there.

I can only really speak from personal experience. I completed my first degree at the University of Calgary. I wasn't satisfied with my GPA, and found my degree to be less than useful, so I enrolled at Athabasca University (Alberta) and completed a second degree in my true passion, English. My GPA was excellent, and seemed to serve very well in helping me to gain admittance at a number of law schools across Canada.

I have never heard of undergrad prejudice amongst admissions committees, but again, I could be proven wrong. I would love to hear any stories that would counter my experience.

Theft of a website

I noticed that sales of my book had gone down significantly this last week. I was really curious as to why, as sales are usually pretty steady. Demand for the book has increased over the last number of months. So, I started poking around, and realized that www.canadalawstudent.ca was no longer up. Some jerk snagged the URL. The URL had been registered to my old U of A email, and I guess they sent the notification that the URL was going to expire to that email. Well, I guess someone was lurking, because if you go to www.canadalawstudent.ca, you will now find somebody else's content. Boy, did that make me angry! I'm not linking to it in this post, because I don't want to support that jerk.

www.canadalawstudent.ca was built as a resource for current and prospective law students. It has been enjoyed by many, and is bookmarked by a lot of people.

As such, I will be reposting the content of that site to another URL within a few days. Please have patience with me. In the meantime, if you want the book, please click here. Sorry for the inconvenience. I wish that I could take that pirate down, but it would seem that he has now legally purchased the domain name, and we are all stuck scrambling to find another home on the WWW.

On another note, I promise to post some new material over the next week, so stay posted.

Harvard Law School's Curricular Changes

One of my recent posts invited readers to comment about what they think is good or bad about law school. Thanks to everyone who commented. The comments certainly have given me food for thought.

Now the faculty at Harvard Law School has weighed in on the matter (although unfortunately not through my blog). In their view, one of the biggest problems in current US legal education is the first-year curriculum. So, they have voted unanimously to implement radical changes. In the future, the first-year curriculum at Harvard will de-emphasize the caselaw method, with its reliance on appellate decisions, and focus more strongly on regulatory, governmental, and international sources of law. Yes, international. An October 6, 2006, announcement by Harvard Law School's Dean Elena Kagan can be found here, and a Boston Globe article discussing the changes can be found here. My thanks go to my colleague, Professor Michael McCann (who received his LL.M. from Harvard), for bringing this story to my attention. (FYI--Check out McCann's excellent Sports Law Blog here.)

This really is a stunning development. My teaching and research focus on international law and international trade regulation, so it's amazing to see. International legal courses are all too often viewed purely as strictly optional or luxury courses in law schools, and yet here is a pre-eminent law school turning that assumption completely on its head. I'm all for more international law in the law school curriculum, and yet honestly I do wonder whether the first year is the best place for it. It's something to think about, anyway.

But even more importantly, Harvard's move basically brings the whole model of legal education into question. Not the value of legal education per se, but rather the nature of the education now offered.

I will be paying attention to this revamped curriculum as it gets rolled out. Who knows--20 years from now, the current way of teaching law may be history. Given the frustration that many students feel in law school, and the perception of many law graduates (and their employers) that law school does not prepare people for the practice of law, perhaps these changes will be a good thing.

FYI--The Volokh Conspiracy has a post on this subject too, although that post focuses primarily on the addition of international law to the 1L curriculum. Check out the comments, which are largely negative, and very interesting.

A Few Things I Have Been Reading (While I Have Not Been Writing)

It's been a busy past few days, so I am a little behind on my posts. One thing I have been doing this fall is searching for additional sites that discuss law career issues, as well as some law students posts that may be worth checking out. The following are a few interesting things I have found recently.

2L student blog Shelley's Case has a nice response to a question I posted on this blog on September 26, 2006--namely, what your thoughts on law school might be. Shell's survival tips for the Socratic Method and comments about the classroom being like a courtroom are very good indeed--the latter especially. Like many things in life, interactions in the law school classroom can be thought of as roleplaying, which not only makes the experience more fun (or less awful at least), but perhaps more meaningful as well.

On a sidenote, the graphic design of that blog has changed. If I remember correctly, last year it was all in pastel colors, but this year it is monochromatic grayscale. A legal blog in shades of gray--somebody must have a sense of humor.

Second year associate blog Lack of Scienter. Visually very nice, and contentwise it is refreshing to hear the views of a junior associate who is not miserable or angry at her law firm. (At least not yet.) Good recent posts include one on the "Working Mothers" List (Sept. 26, 2006) (query: is there such a thing as a "Working Fathers" List?) and another on associate mentoring programs (Sept. 25, 2006), which is a favorite topic of mine. But read this blog's posts soon, since there are no archives, and old posts just get deleted.

The New York Lawyer. This is not a new site, but I only started reading it regularly this fall. It has lots of online articles relevant to newbie lawyers and people considering career changes within the law. Favorite recent article: Large Firm Life: Managing Junior Associates (Oct. 6, 2006). Note: You need to register to have access to this site, but registration is free.

Other Stuff? To be honest, this post was supposed to be about interesting new law student blogs, but frankly I haven't found any good new ones. (Check out the ones I already had listed on my blogroll, though.) Maybe it's because a lot of them say much the same thing: I'm overwhelmed, everyone IMs in class, exams stink, I'm drunk (again), etc. Those that seem more original don't necessarily discuss the kind of behavior I'd like to encourage--like the blog posts I found about how to sleep with half the attorneys and staff at the firm where you are a summer associate and still get a permanent offer (I'm definitely not dignifying that one with a link).

Maybe I am just turning into a cynical, crabby old geezer a decade or two before my allotted time. But I don't see much out there on the student side of things that catches my eye as worth reading. If anyone one sees something I missed, though, please post a comment and tell me about it.