Photo By 2nd Lt. Enjoli Saunders | U.S. Air Force Maj. Jacqueline Brown, an assistant staff judge advocate assigned to...... read more read more
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Meet U.S. Air Force Maj. Jacqueline Brown, an assistant staff judge advocate assigned to the 175th Wing, Maryland Air National Guard. Brown recently supported the 31st Fighter Wing Legal Office, Aviano Air Base, Italy, during the MDANG’s annual training.
“There are always efficiencies that I think that one can appreciate from going to other offices and learning about how they operate,” said Brown. “I definitely think that there are gains, not just the experience but there are process gains about how different offices run, how they organize tasks, how they delegate tasks to various people, as well as how they keep up with their training and reporting.”
United States Air Force Judge Advocates (JAG) help protect the rights of those who serve. They typically handle a wide variety of legal issues including international, operations, or environmental law along with military and civilian personnel issues. The JAG is commonly responsible for formulating legal policies for local bases, providing legal advice, as well as monitoring, coordinating and directing legal activities. Additionally, they may act as a trial or defense counsel. From the initial legal inquiry to post-trial proceedings, the JAG provides important legal counsel for every step throughout the process.
“We give commanders legal advice when they are making decisions in a wide range of things regarding authorization to take a certain action, whether to and how to discipline members, when to appoint an investigating agent, and when a commander directed investigation is appropriate,” said Brown. “We also advise members about including seeking outside employment, reporting outside employment, financial matters, child custody issues, but our most common area of legal assistance is wills and powers of attorney for deployment.”
On the civilian side Brown serves as an assistant U.S. attorney in the western district of Pennsylvania, where she primarily performs civil litigation work and some criminal work which includes trials, investigating witnesses, reviewing documents, and writing briefs for matters pending in federal court. She has been in the legal field for about 15 years and serving in this specific capacity for two and a half years.
“I appreciate working with and liaising with other members of the MDANG, you get to see what other folks are doing and talk to other members that you don’t get to see on a regular day-to -day,” said Brown. “This type of annual training is important because a lot of the legal issues that arise on base, because we are only there part time, we don’t get as many issues as quickly. For instance, I am currently performing a Freedom of Information Act review which is something we would do on base but not frequently; this type of training is essential in order to give us the know how to do it on our own and can also serve as refresher training.”
| Date Taken: | 07.20.2022 |
| Date Posted: | 08.05.2022 14:07 |
| Story ID: | 426630 |
| Location: | IT |
| Web Views: | 227 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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