New episode of our video podcast, Speaking of Litigation: This Veterans Day, Speaking of Litigation brings you a special episode featuring Epstein Becker Green attorneys Stuart Gerson, Jack Fernandez, Ron Green, and Ken Kelly, who share their unique journeys from military service to impactful legal careers.
Hear their remarkable stories:
- Stuart’s counterintelligence work in the Air Force during the Vietnam War
- Jack’s high-stakes missions as a Navy fighter pilot, including video footage of a fiery landing on an aircraft carrier
- Ron’s experiences litigating war crimes as a Judge Advocate General officer
- Ken’s leadership in the Army Transportation Corps
Discover how their military experiences shaped their leadership, resilience, and approach to the practice of law. This episode also celebrates the service of the broader Epstein Becker Green community, including employees and their families.
Podcast: Amazon Music, Apple Podcasts, Audacy, Audible, Deezer, Goodpods, iHeartRadio, Overcast, Pandora, PlayerFM, Pocket Casts, Spotify, YouTube, YouTube Music
Transcript
[00:00:00] Ken Kelly: Hello everyone, and welcome to a special Veterans Day podcast of Speaking of Litigation. I'm Ken Kelly. I'm Of Counsel to Epstein Becker & Green in the litigation practice. I'm located in Newark, New Jersey and New York City. Before that, for the three decades that I worked at Epstein Becker, I was the co-chair of the National Litigation Practice.
[00:00:28] Ken Kelly: Our managing partner, Jim Flynn, asked me a couple weeks ago to host this podcast, to commemorate Veterans Day and to honor all of our veterans by interviewing three of our litigation lawyers who served in the armed forces several decades ago. They'll tell us about their military service and explain how it impacted their practice of law after their military service.
[00:00:50] Ken Kelly: For this podcast, I've asked Ron Green, who served in the Army, Stuart Gerson, who served in the Air Force, and Jack Fernandez, who served in the Navy, to speak with me. Each of these veterans had quite a different tour of duty, and each will recount their own experience in the service and how it influenced their legal careers.
[00:01:11] Ken Kelly: Let's start off with Stuart Gerson. Stuart joined us in 1980 as part of the health care and life sciences practice, and basically he is a health care litigator. He does work in cases involving the US government, doctors, practitioners, insurance companies, and sometimes even white collar criminal defense work.
[00:01:33] Ken Kelly: Stuart was the Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Division of the United States Department of Justice during the term of President Bush the elder for four years. At that time he took a leave of absence from Epstein Becker and Green. But today we'd like to talk about Stuart's prior four years of service to the country when he was in the US Air Force.
[00:01:53] Ken Kelly: Stuart, could you tell our viewers what you did and how you came to be an officer in the US Air Force?
[00:02:00] Stuart Gerson: Well, Ken, in the summer of 1967, when I graduated from law school, I was kind of ahead of myself in the class. I was 22 years old, single, and probably the most draft eligible person in the United States at the time that the Vietnam War was at its hottest.
[00:02:18] Stuart Gerson: And I knew the handwriting on the wall, but I was more than happy to serve my country as well. And so, I joined the United States Air Force. At first I wanted to be an astronaut. That didn't work out very well. I was too tall. And so, thereafter, I mean, I was a lawyer. I passed the bar.
[00:02:35] Stuart Gerson: Just talked to enough people who'd been in the service and they said, if you're gonna go in, go in, be a part of the action, be a line officer, not a staff officer. And so I asked about that and I was sent to counterintelligence school, and I served as counterintelligence and with some criminal investigation responsibility between 1967 and 1971.
[00:02:53] Stuart Gerson: And in those four years I became a man. I’m quite serious about it. I got much more out of the service than the service ever got out of me. I originally was assigned to counterintelligence work in the Midwest, dealing with people who were blowing up ROTC buildings which was an unfortunate feature of the culture in the late sixties. But then in the wake of the seizure of the Pueblo, I was sent to Korea and gained a command. The officer to whom I reported was fired. And suddenly there I was next in line, responsible for the lives and fortunes of a group of men and a few women who were all old enough to be my parents.
[00:03:41] Stuart Gerson: I would say that's where I really became the lawyer that I ultimately became because I had to exercise judgment on life or death issues, issues related to national security matters, and contacts that persist through today. And I had a very rich, and I hope successful for the country, military experience.
[00:04:02] Ken Kelly: Well, that's pretty unusual. That's not the usual tour of duty that myself or the other people we're talking to. What specifically can you tell us about that without breaching any security?
[00:04:13] Stuart Gerson: Well, apparently I was good at it. That was the thing that probably surprised everybody.
[00:04:17] Stuart Gerson: You know, I was able to turn lawyer skills into good command skills. They asked me to be a regular officer and to make a career out of the Air Force. The general to whom I ultimately reported, a great man named Bob Maloy who sadly died of cancer much too soon, certainly would've been the chief of staff, inveighed upon me to stay in the service.
[00:04:38] Stuart Gerson: It isn't what I wanted to do. I wanted to try cases, and so when I left the service, I became a federal prosecutor. But in terms of going into the military, Ken, you know, we're about the same age. You know, we thought about the military in a different way from the way young people think about it today.
[00:04:55] Stuart Gerson: The world situation was much different. We were at war. And I was happy to serve. I mean, I grew up in a town that had a Congressional Medal of Honor winner in it that led the Memorial Day Parade every year. Michael Valente was his name. He was the war hero from World War I.
[00:05:12] Stuart Gerson:He fought battles in France at peril to life and limb. And I grew up with that mentality. I mean, I'm of a generation where… my father was too old to serve in the war, but all my friends' fathers did. And the World War II experience surrounded us, our view of the country surrounded us.
[00:05:31] Stuart Gerson: And so I really had no trouble going into the military. And as I say I benefited tremendously as a human being, as a lawyer, as a leader, from doing that. I remember, you know, talking about that with President Bush, who was somebody who was the youngest person ever shot down in military action. Aand his experience right out of Yale going into World War II.
[00:05:55] Stuart Gerson: And as I think you know, Ken, he and I were friends and I benefited, this in later years, but in just reviewing our military histories, his a lot more heroic than mine, we just saw how much we benefited from that. How it helped mold our view of the country and what we wanted to do.
[00:06:16] Stuart Gerson: And it's, I certainly was lucky enough with that mentality. To have a rich career blending public service with private practice.
[00:06:25] Ken Kelly: Now you were stationed in Korea, you mentioned, were you stationed anywhere else besides Korea?
[00:06:29] Stuart Gerson: My first tour of duty was in Topeka, Kansas at a place called Forbes Air Force Base, which was famous as having been named after a guy named Daniel Forbes, who flew the infamous flying wing that had exactly one flight before it crashed and left the inventory.
[00:06:44] Stuart Gerson: But I was concerned, my territory… first I was stationed in Washington to be trained in counterintelligence and had a lot of field assignments and the like of that for the first year or so that I was in the service, having gone through officer training school at Lackland Air Base in Texas, in San Antonio.
[00:07:03] Stuart Gerson: But my first formal assignment was in Topeka. And as I said earlier, the dish of the day was dealing with people who were blowing up ROTC buildings. A few of those activities causing the death of civilians and military people. I did that for a few years. Did a lot of background investigations, did a lot of field field work.
[00:07:25] Stuart Gerson: Got a lot of dirt on my shoes, mud on my shoes, from walking through livestock fields in Kansas, looking for witnesses and working on operations, essentially dealing with domestic terrorism and violence. And then later on, as I say, the Pueblo was seized. I'm sure most people don't remember that, but the Pueblo was a famous signal ship that the North Koreans seized at tremendous intelligence loss to the United States.
[00:07:52] Stuart Gerson: I and a number of people were sent to Korea at that time to set up better counterintelligence networks, gain greater information and report and act on that sort of thing, while also investigating related criminal activity, both with regard to dispatching information and in terms of people who were subject to physical violence in these perilous times, as I say, in the midst of the Vietnam War, when the United States was under attack Iin a bunch of ways.
[00:08:23] Ken Kelly: During, during your service, did you ever work with anybody in the JAG, the Judge Advocate General's office?
[00:08:28] Stuart Gerson: Oh, all the time. Because I would, or I and the people who reported to me and the command that I was in, would develop cases, some of which would be prosecuted.
[00:08:38] Stuart Gerson: And in that context, I worked regularly with JAGs and we were all on bases that I was assigned to. I was a contemporary and equal, if I will, to the local judge advocate general, and work together again on legal issues. And because I was a lawyer, sometimes the base commander would drag me into things for a second opinion, or, you know, ideas as to what to do with particular things.
[00:09:07] Stuart Gerson: And that was an area, an interesting area, I don't want to get too far off the track, but there was a lot of racial dissension in the service. I have been, I don't know whether it's fortunate or just opportunistic enough, to have credibility with minority communities over the years, and was brought to intervene in a number of racial confrontations, which unfortunately pervaded much of the service in the late sixties and early seventies. You would hear stories about fraggings in Vietnam and the like of that. My job, in part, was to prevent issues like that and set up avenues of communication. That benefited me tremendously when I was dealing in private law practice, and then as an assistant United States attorney, dealing with members of minority communities. And in talking to juries. So, as I say, I got a lot out of being in the service. It grew me up.
[00:10:01] Ken Kelly: That's great. It's a great story. We'll hear from Ron Green, our partner who was in the JAG, and he'll tell his stories about that later on. Question for you is, would you recommend to someone who's getting out of college or getting out of law school, to look to the military for either a part-time career or a full-time career?
[00:10:19] Stuart Gerson: I would look at it as something to be considered. It's not suitable to all people, but one thing I would recommend strongly is spending a part or maybe all of one's career in public service, whether it's the military, whether it's as a public prosecutor or in government in some way or another.
[00:10:37] Stuart Gerson: I worked well in the military. I was good in a hierarchical situation, especially because, at least in the local sense, I was near the top of it. That was not unhelpful. But as I say, I benefited tremendously from being in the military. In the branch of the Air Force I was assigned to, which was called the Office of Special Investigations, the OSI, that office had been set up in 1947 when the Air Force was created, and had been set up by officials of the FBI.
[00:11:06] Stuart Gerson: And so the structure, the investigative structure of the OSI, which was immortalized in the comic script Terry and the Pirates, OSI was in there all the time, that structure was much like what United States attorney's offices ran on and the like of that. And as I say, I fit in it pretty well.
[00:11:24] Stuart Gerson: You reach your level, fortunately I was able to thrive in a command level. And as I say, it did me a world of good, especially when I was an assistant US attorney.
[00:11:36] Ken Kelly: After your four years of service, did you have any reserve requirement of any kind?
[00:11:39] Stuart Gerson: I did, but it was inactive because of what I did.
[00:11:43] Stuart Gerson: So I was never called up. But having gotten out of the service, my first job was in government service. I was hired to be an assistant United States Attorney for the District of Columbia. So I moved from one area of public service to another.
[00:11:58] Ken Kelly: Well, we're very fortunate that you joined Epstein Becker back in 1980.
[00:12:03] Ken Kelly: Now listen, I thank you for your time today, Stuart, and happy Veterans Day to you.
[00:12:08] Stuart Gerson: Thanks, Ken. I appreciate it. And the same.
—
[00:12:14] Ken Kelly: I'd like to introduce to our viewers Jack Fernandez. In contrast to our other participants who have been with Epstein Becker and Green for four, maybe even five decades, Jack joined us as counsel in our Tampa, Florida office at the beginning of October. So, you'll learn that his service was different from others and that he is a graduate of the Naval Academy of Annapolis. So on behalf of the rest of the firm, welcome aboard.
[00:12:43] Jack Fernandez: Good to be here.
[00:12:44] Ken Kelly: Jack, as I said, your service was markedly different from the other participants, Ron Green and Stu Gerson. Why did you as a high school student decide to apply to the service academy many, many years ago?
[00:12:50] Jack Fernandez: Well, long story short, back in the sixties when I was a youngster, a very young person, it was the period of the space program and I became fascinated with these guys that were going into space.
[00:13:03] Jack Fernandez: It was all guys back then. It's not like that anymore. And that's what I wanted to do. So I asked my mother, you know, how did these people end up becoming astronauts? And I guess she took me to the library in Tampa. And we looked at, you know, we looked up where these guys had come from and it turned out four out of seven of the original Mercury astronauts were naval aviators. One was a marine aviator, but it's the same thing because we go to the same flight school, that was John Glenn. And many had gone to the service academy. So that's how I initially got interested and just stuck with it and applied when I was a junior, I guess a sophomore or junior in high school.
[00:13:41] Ken Kelly: And then you were at the service academy for four years.
[00:13:44] Jack Fernandez: I was there for four years, graduated and went on to flight school, which was all part of the original six year old's plan.
[00:13:52] Ken Kelly: Okay. So then after you graduated from Annapolis what was your service record? What did you do and where did you do it?
[00:13:58] Jack Fernandez: I graduated in June of 1978 and went off to Navy Flight School in Pensacola is where I started. Flight school ended in Meridian, Mississippi which was the advanced jet training base at the time. So after I got my wings, I think it was in January of 1981, I was assigned to the F-14 replacement air group.
[00:14:18] Jack Fernandez: I don't think they call it that anymore, but it was in Oceania and Virginia Beach, Virginia. After about a year of training the F-14 Tomcat, I was assigned to Fighter Squadron 32, which was stationed aboard the USS Independence. This was, I guess, early 1983, I suppose. And from there we just started cruising.
[00:14:38] Jack Fernandez: The cycle is you do workups on the aircraft carrier so that everybody kind of shakes out the bugs of how you fly on and off the ship. Then we deployed to the Eastern Mediterranean. Initially though, I don't know if you remember, there was this little thing called Grenada. So we got diverted to Grenada and then in late 1983, they blew up the marine barracks, terrorists blew up the marine barracks in Beirut.
[00:15:01] Jack Fernandez: So we went faster than I've ever seen an aircraft carrier steam to the Eastern Med so we could take up station along with the USS Kennedy off the coast of Beirut in Lebanon.
[00:15:11] Ken Kelly: The F-14 was a fighter, or a fighter bomber?
[00:15:14] Jack Fernandez: It was a fighter. It didn't carry bombs at that time, but it carried bombs later.
[00:15:18] Jack Fernandez: But at the time I flew, it was just a fighter with guns and missiles.
[00:15:22] Ken Kelly: Tell us about what you learned as a, was it, you were an officer at that point in time, I assume, right?
[00:15:27] Jack Fernandez: Yes, yes.
[00:15:29] Ken Kelly: What did you learn at that time being an officer in the Navy, and particularly with regard to actually being on duty on an aircraft carrier that basically helped you in later life?
[00:15:39] Jack Fernandez: I think it was, it was very, very intense, very high stress when we were out on the ship. You're working with an entire airwing. We flew in basically 12 airplane launches. You learn teamwork, you learn how all of the pieces fit together. You know, we were flying a number of combat missions at the time.
[00:15:57] Jack Fernandez: You learn, you know, you learn sort of to subjugate your fears in yourself a little bit to sort of the mission. And everything revolved around what that mission was and how to complete it and how to bring everybody back home safely. So, you know, you learn how to manage troops to some extent. To a lesser extent, because we were mostly concerned with flying the airplanes and doing section and division tactics, which is where you fly with the other aircraft and the airwing, refueling, you know, flying the missions and so on.
[00:16:28] Ken Kelly: So did this planning help you and planning out for doing trial work after you got out of the service?
[00:16:33] Jack Fernandez: I've thought about that a lot, especially after we talked the other day, and it did because you basically plan every part of the mission from, you know, the most minor apparently inconsequential thing.
[00:16:45] Jack Fernandez: For example, how you strap into the aircraft. People strap into the airplane exactly the same way every time so you don't miss a connection. Because you can imagine if you miss a connection, you know, and you go to eject from the airplane and you're not hooked up to it, you've got a real problem at that point.
[00:17:00] Jack Fernandez: But you plan everything from actually strapping in to every part of it, including, you know, taxiing to the end of the aircraft carrier and parking the aircraft, which in many cases was the scariest part of the mission beause they'd bring you right up to the front so that you were almost leaning over the edge as you're trying to park this thing, you're trying not to fall overboard.
[00:17:21] Jack Fernandez: But in trial planning, it's the same thing. You try to plan for every possible eventuality along the way, because what you know is that something surprising will come up. Something unexpected. And if everything else is more or less committed to rote and committed to reflex, then those things that come up that are surprising or unexpected are things that you can handle, and you can focus on them rather than the other things that you shouldn't have to focus on.
[00:17:46] Ken Kelly: During the course of your career, you told me the other day when we were talking, about one particular hair raising moment that you had with regard to landing the airplane. Could you tell us about that before I show the video?
[00:17:57] Jack Fernandez: This was, I guess it was, I think I computed it once, it was my 10th night carrier landing. And night carrier landings on a ship are particularly harrowing because you don't have any horizon and the ship is just a point source of light.
[00:18:07] Jack Fernandez: So it's hard to fly to. My backseater and I, Dana Barkley, without whom I wouldn't be here today probably, we catapulted off the front end of the ship and within a few minutes of leaving the aircraft carrier, while we were joining the tanker, we got a fire light. And the procedure was to shut the engine down and come back and land the aircraft.
[00:18:31] Jack Fernandez: With nine and a half feet of off center thrust, you got terrible yaw moments on the aircraft. It would just, it would kind of slip and slide. And when you look in the video, we're supposed to be lined up directly in the center of the crosshairs that are in the video, where you can see I was having real problems maintaining the center line of the ship.
[00:18:51] Jack Fernandez: So we came to land the first time with that, with that firelight and got airborne. But as I got airborne I hadn't completely secured the dumps on the aircraft. You have to dump down the fuel so that you can get to landing weight. And as soon as I lit the afterburner, which you had to use because we only had one engine to get off the ship or you'd settle into the water, it torched off a lot of that fuel.
[00:19:15] Jack Fernandez: And so I had to come out of afterburner to get the fuel not lit.
[00:19:18] Video Clip: Okay, now fly the ball, left the lineup. Don't climb now. Power go. Power go. Boulder, boulder. 214. You're on fire. You’re on fire. You’re dumping. Stay in there.
[00:19:36] Jack Fernandez: And then came back around, tried it again and made it the second time. Luckily.
[00:19:40] Video Clip: Nice and easy. Now you're a little bit overpowered here. You're overpowered. Fly the ball now.
[00:19:48] Video Clip: We gotcha.
[00:19:50] Ken Kelly: Okay, thanks. That was pretty scary, even watching it. In the dark. You could barely see the airplane, but tell from the landing lights that it's going back and forth and up and down as you're coming in. It was a
[00:19:59] Jack Fernandez: Yea, it was a bad landing. [laughter] It was tough.
[00:20:01] Ken Kelly: What did you find most rewarding about your service in the Navy?
[00:20:07] Jack Fernandez: You know, flying the aircraft was immensely satisfying when it wasn't just terrifying. So learning how to do that, that was a skill that I really liked. I think more than that though was working as a team with you know, the 20 other folks in the squadron who I got to work with and just, you know, working with those people day in and day out and learning how they functioned and learning what their reactions to certain things would be.
[00:20:32] Jack Fernandez: Working on missions, getting thegetting the air aircraft operations under control and that sort of thing. And I think that was it. I think the satisfaction was working with the other people in my squadron, keeping the airplanes airborne, and then flying the aircraft with other pilots and other people in the backseat.
[00:20:54] Ken Kelly: After your service, how long were you on active duty anyway?
[00:20:58] Jack Fernandez: After the Naval Academy in ‘78 I stayed in until 1986 because as an aviator I had a fairly long commitment. You had to stay a certain amount after you got your wings. Which for me was five years. So I stayed an extra year while I was trying to decide whether to go to law school or not.
[00:21:16] Ken Kelly: And then after your service, did you go to law school? I
[00:21:19] Jack Fernandez: I did. I did. At Cornell, in New York. In upstate New York.
[00:21:26] Ken Kelly: I know it well, as it turns out. And basically, quickly, what was your career after that?
[00:21:31] Jack Fernandez: After that I clerked for Dixon Phillips, who was a judge on the Fourth Circuit, passed away a while back.
[00:21:38] Jack Fernandez: He had been a Battle of the Bulge veteran, and so he was a very impressive guy, a very good judge, appointed by President Carter. I did that for a year. Then I went to a firm called Holland and Knight, which is a big firm, I think you all probably are familiar with it. I got hired to the US Attorney's Office about a year and a half into that and spent, I think, five years at the US Attorney's Office, toward the end doing health care fraud cases, which was really a smart thing to do, as it turned out. It was more lucky than smart, but there were interesting cases. After that I went to a small firm with a partner who I'd known from Holland and Knight, and then after that to Zuckerman Spaeder, which concentrated, at the time, on white collar criminal defense, primarily.
[00:22:20] Jack Fernandez: It was strictly a litigation firm and still is.
[00:22:24] Ken Kelly: If you were asked by a young high school student whether you should consider applying for one of the service academies, not just serving in the military, but applying for one of the service academies, what would you advise them?
[00:22:37] Jack Fernandez: I've been asked to give that advice many times before to friends of mine whose kids were going. In fact, my daughter went. And I think my advice would be to know exactly what you're getting into before you go and make sure you're going for the right reason. It’s a pretty hard four years.
[00:22:52] Jack Fernandez: It's very intense. You have to have focus when you go there and you have to understand why you're there and the fact that when you come out, you know, you're going to spend five or six years in a war fighting capacity and there's no telling where you'll end up.
[00:23:07] Jack Fernandez: A lot of my classmates went into the Marine Corps, a lot went into the Navy. I think I would say just to, you know, examine whether it's something that you really want to do. Are you really committed to service the country that way? Because it's intense, it's tough, and it's incredibly worthwhile.
[00:23:24] Ken Kelly: Jack, thank you. Thank you kindly very much for your time today. I wish you luck at Epstein Becker and Green. I'm sure we'll be working together.
[00:23:30] Jack Fernandez: Hope so.
[00:23:44] Ken Kelly: And I think on behalf of all of us, thank you for your service. You know, unlike the other ones that we've spoken to, we will speak to, you're actually on the front line putting yourself at risk and that takes a lot of guts.
[00:23:45] Jack Fernandez: Well, thank you. Thank you for your service.
—
[00:23:49] Ken Kelly: All of our viewers know you as one of the founding members of our firm, and that you're one of the preeminent litigators and trial lawyers in the HR space, but I don't think very many people know about your background in the military. You know, the various roles that you had and how you came to be a trial lawyer in the United States Army. So I’d appreciate it if you could just go through your military history so our folks can appreciate that.
[00:24:12] Ron Green: Sure. I was in law school when I married and had my first child, so I had to defer going in. I joined the reserve unit so I could get through my coursework and take the bar.
[00:24:26] Ron Green: I came in as a 11 Bravo private, but I quickly moved to Acting Master Sergeant because they were short of NCOs, so I didn't get a chance to train with the troops. I trained them. And after being admitted to the bar, I refused to become a radio operator. I didn't mind carrying a rifle, but I wasn't going to carry a radio, along with a few other fellows. They split us up and they sent me to a JAG office.
[00:24:54] Ron Green: Then they realized I wasn't an officer, so they made me a lieutenant, and they realized that wasn't good enough for them. Fine with me. They made me a captain. They assigned me to war crimes. So on and off, the first six years after law school, I was either a federal prosecutor as a civilian or I was wearing a military uniform and doing prosecution and defense of war crimes for JAG.
[00:25:18] Ken Kelly: Well, how did it come about that you were working as a civilian lawyer while you were in the army, wearing a business suit?
[00:25:23] Ron Green: Those were difficult times for the country and not just for the military. Supply and demand, they were just short of JAG guys and the federal government didn't mind sharing me with the army when I could take time off of work.
[00:25:36] Ron Green: So over the course of six years, I was in and out of my military uniform. In and out of my business uniform. Sometimes a little confusing because I was prosecuting as a civilian, but I was defending and prosecuting as an officer in the Army. Interesting six years.
[00:25:53] Ken Kelly: So one week you could be the prosecutor, and next week you could be the defense counsel.
[00:25:57] Ron Green: In fact, Army Jag, on the very same day. You could have files in front of you that you’re prosecuting and defending in the same unit. Back in civilian life, I was just prosecuting for the federal government.
[00:26:10] Ken Kelly: Did you have JAG training at the University of Virginia or one of the other places?
[00:26:16] Ron Green: I did. UBA, in fact, at the JAG School. Also at Pentagon, and sometimes at Fort Meade.
[00:26:22] Ron Green: And I think it was Hattiesburg, Mississippi as well, we did some training. But we took that training on and off a couple times a year, always getting better. Keep in mind that at least Army JAG, we didn't have secretaries, we did our own typing. So our briefs tended to be very short and to the point. We also did our own research, got some investigative help, but basically we did our own work.
[00:26:45] Ron Green: We learned to be efficient. Very efficient.
[00:26:49] Ken Kelly: So what is the difference? We've seen movies like The Caine Mutiny and A Few Good Men. What's a court martial or a military trial like compared to a trial before a civilian judge, whether criminal or civil?
[00:27:06] Ron Green: Well, for one thing, the presiding judge in a military trial may not be a lawyer. As well, the composition of the panel, we don't call them jurors, they're members, can be three, up to 13, depending upon whether it's special, general. And the overarching theme, I think, when we're in uniform, military uniform, is decorum.
[00:27:26] Ron Green: You do not misbehave in a military tribunal if you're a legal advocate. And any witness on the stand that's a commissioned officer gets your respect, and you impeach him at your peril if you're not very carefully prepared and assured of the outcome of where you're going. So what it does train you to be, beyond being efficient, is respectful of the environment and also calm.
[00:27:51] Ron Green: You don't hear about JAG officers jumping up and screaming, crying, laughing, snickering. Sarcasm is not something you hear in a military tribunal. So it teaches you, for better or for worse, to ride with the punches, work with minimal research available to you, sometimes, almost always minimal discovery, and work under tremendous pressure, but always with decorum, always with respect for everybody in the courtroom.
[00:28:19] Ken Kelly: And the judges, a panel of judges, they're all military officers or high level non-commissioned officers?
[00:28:26] Ron Green: Yes. And it could be a single judge. It can be a panel of three or five, but yes, they're almost always commissioned officers.
[00:28:36] Ken Kelly: And when you were working as a JAG officer either as a prosecutor or a defense lawyer, that was under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, correct?
[00:28:43] Ron Green: The UCMJ. Yes, it was.
[00:28:45] Ken Kelly: Is that similar to the criminal codes in, say, in New York or under the federal law?
[00:28:51] Ron Green: In some respects, but not in many respects. Levels of punishment are very, very different. There are fewer loopholes and quite frankly, what you don't see much in criminal prosecutions of the UCMJ is leniency.
[00:29:06] Ron Green: They tend to be pretty strict with punishment for crimes.
[00:29:11] Ken Kelly: Any specific cases you worked on that our listeners might be interested in hearing about?
[00:29:15] Ron Green: Well, probably one. I was working on Calley's prosecution. I had Medina. And F. Lee Bailey was representing Medina. And I went to his office in Boston at the time with my colleagues and our hats under our arms.
[00:29:34] Ron Green: We walk into his office and he's got a throne. F. Lee Bailey, civilian defense lawyer, wanted to be taller sitting than we were standing. Wasn't a good beginning. We also used polygraphs in the Medina phase of the My Lai trials, so that was probably the most well-known case I had anything at all to do with.
[00:29:56] Ron Green: But there were, sadly, very common that we'd have war crimes prosecutions during the height of the war between ‘68, ‘69, and ‘72 or ‘73.
[00:30:07] Ken Kelly: Those of us who may know about it, My Lai was an instance where American soldiers were directed to actually kill Vietnamese civilians. Isn't that right?
[00:30:17] Ron Green: Entire village. Yes. And Calley was prosecuted, convicted, confined to barracks. He didn't receive any more severe punishment than that, and I think he may have been pardoned by President Nixon, as I recall. Medina escaped punishment.
[00:30:33] Ken Kelly: Okay. You mentioned very briefly about what you did as a trial lawyer.
[00:30:37] Ken Kelly: How did what you do as a JAG lawyer impact the way you tried cases when you became a civilian lawyer?
[00:30:45] Ron Green: That's an excellent question. I think it has to do a lot with preparation, because when you don't have a team, and it was rare that we had a really significant team, and doing so much of the research yourself, preparation of witnesses yourself, you tend to be more thorough and methodical when you prepare your cases and put fewer things to chance. Because as I said, under the UCMJ, the punishments can be very severe. And you want to be sure as best you can, you're not punishing the innocent or freeing the guilty. So it's about preparation, I think, is the most important element.
[00:31:21] Ron Green: And I never want to stray far from this. It's the way you behave in the courtroom, just as we do as trial lawyers in civilian life. We know that how we dress, how we act, particularly how we speak, reflects the client. We are the client's presence in that courtroom. So when you're prosecuting as a civilian, the government is your client.
[00:31:46] Ron Green: But when you're defending, as I do so much of that these days, as a civilian defense lawyer, I never forget that the jurors and the judges are seeing my client through me. Everything I do in that courtroom reflects on how the jurors and the judge will see my client, and that's why I stress, always, the fact of decorum. Because the jurors notice those things, especially in the jury trials.
[00:32:12] Ron Green: Most of my cases are jury tried. Your behavior is attributed to your client even if your client's not in the room with you at counsel’s table.
[00:32:21] Ken Kelly: Yeah. Apart from the professional skills, Ron, that you honed as a trial lawyer for the United States Army, what advice would you give to someone who was thinking of either a military career or actually signing up to work in the Army or the Navy or the Air Force on a temporary basis?
[00:32:40] Ron Green: My advice is, especially in the age of AI, it's going to be more and more difficult to young men and women coming out of law school to find a really good job, with a really fine law firm, because you'll be seen increasingly as an intern, not unlike the medical profession.
[00:33:02] Ron Green: Therefore, if you can spend the first two or three years after law school in the military, civilian government, in-house counsel, so much the better. You'll be so much more prepared and better able to render ROI to the law firm that's taking a gamble by hiring you, because you're going to know how to research, you're going to know how to interact with clients.
[00:33:26] Ron Green: You've been in courtrooms, hopefully you've sat through some trials. So whatever you can do to hone your skills beyond what you learn in law school will only help you long term. You'll hit the ground running when you finally land a job in the law firm.
[00:33:40] Ken Kelly: Ron, I thank you very much for your time. I think it's very helpful, and as we do every year, happy Veteran's Day.
[00:33:48] Ron Green: Thank you my friend. Very same to you. Thank you for your service.
[00:33:53] Ken Kelly: My own career in the military, which my colleagues referred to briefly, was hardly as exciting as these fellas. I participated in the Army ROTC while I was in college back in the early sixties, and received my commission as a second lieutenant in the United States Army Transportation Corps when I graduated.
[00:34:09] Ken Kelly: I was deferred for law school, but about four or five days after the bar exam I entered on active duty at Fort Eustis, Virginia, at the Transportation Officers Training Court. I stayed there for four and a half months, and then I was an active reservist in New York City. I spent four and a half years on active duty at Fort Hamilton in Brooklyn, New York.
[00:34:32] Ken Kelly: And that basically consisted of meetings with soldiers every other Sunday, together with a two week stint at various logistical centers around the New York metropolitan area. During my training at Fort Eustis, I learned small arms tactics, small unit tactics, how to organize and conduct troop transports, and more importantly, we practiced our various convoy training in Southeast Virginia.
[00:35:00] Ken Kelly: And basically every two weeks we tied up civilian traffic at every hour of the day and night to the consternation, I think, of all the locals. But they understood what we were doing. Well, you may ask whether I learned anything about litigation when I was in the service. The answer is really no.
[00:35:15] Ken Kelly: But it was invaluable because I worked with people, both with subordinates and superiors and colleagues and peers, for all walks of life, from all over the United States, and I think that helped in being able to converse and talk to and communicate with jurors, who again, come from all walks of life and you don't know them, when I started practicing law and trying cases for Epstein Becker and Green, and even before that.
[00:35:35] Ken Kelly: In addition, what I thought was invaluable was learning how to be a leader, in civilian terms a manager, when dealing with people, how to reward them, how to encourage them, how to motivate them. And this is equally important in civilian life as it is in the military.
[00:35:55] Ken Kelly: The three gentlemen who you heard from are just a few of the several dozen Epstein Becker Green employees or their parents or spouses, siblings and children, who have served or are serving in the military. They include the following. We have the sister of one of our lawyers, is a colonel in the United States Air Force.
[00:36:15] Ken Kelly: The son of one of our litigators is an officer in the Army and a paratrooper. The son of one of our secretaries is a Navy sailor. The son of one of our paralegals is currently serving in the infantry in Germany. The brother of one of our IT personnel was the Chief Petty Officer on a nuclear submarine.
[00:36:34] Ken Kelly: And I think one of the most impressive tours of duty, the uncle of one of our colleagues was a pilot on Air Force One. I want to thank you for tuning in, and give thanks to all of our veterans for their service. In that regard, I'd like to close with a very short but appropriate film clip from John F Kennedy's inaugural address. Happy Veterans Day to all.
[00:36:57] Video Clip: And so my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.
About Speaking of Litigation®
No business likes litigation. Lawsuits and trials can be stressful, unpredictable, and often confounding—even for battle-scarred business leaders. But they’re something almost every business must confront. The Speaking of Litigation® video podcast pulls back the curtain for an inside look at the various stages of litigation and the key strategic issues businesses face along the way. Knowledge is power, and this show empowers executives and in-house counsel to make better decisions before, during, and after disputes. Subscribe to Speaking of Litigation® for a steady flow of practical, thought-provoking insights about litigation from Epstein Becker Green litigators.
Trouble playing podcast? Please contact us at thisweek@ebglaw.com and mention whether you were at home or working within a corporate network. We'd also love to hear your suggestions for future episode topics.
SPEAKING OF LITIGATION® is a registered trademark of Epstein Becker & Green, P.C.
Subscribe to the Podcast
Never miss an episode!
Subscribe to Speaking of Litigation® on your preferred platform – Amazon Music, Apple Podcasts, Audacy, Audible, Deezer, Goodpods, iHeartRadio, Overcast, Pandora, PlayerFM, Pocket Casts, Spotify, YouTube, YouTube Music.
Sign Up FOR EMAIL NOTIFICATIONS
Spread the Word
Would your colleagues, professional network, or friends benefit from Speaking of Litigation? Please share each episode on LinkedIn, Facebook, X, YouTube, and YouTube Music, and encourage your connections to subscribe for email notifications.