I know I’m nearly six months late to the party, but I finally got around to reading 2019’s first issue of The Army Lawyer. And to my delight, I stumbled upon the abridged version of BG (Ret) Richard Gross’s “Solf-Warren Lecture in National Security Law” as delivered at TJAGLCS on 23 March 2018. That was over a year ago, but his words clearly won’t grow stale. Give it a read.
BG (Ret) Gross is one of the esteemed members of the JAGWAR Board of Advisors; his biography on that page encapsulates only a fraction of the incredible things he accomplished during his tenure as an Active Duty Judge Advocate. He’s afforded our organization an incredible depth of insight.
BG (Ret) Gross’s address last year was entitled “Find Your Yoda: Ten Rules for Being a Rock-Star Operational Attorney”. It’s witty and well-written, and the editors at The Army Lawyer have done such a fantastic job presenting his words that I won’t endeavor to summarize them here. But I’ll nonetheless paraphrase a few of my favorite tidbits:
Be integrated into your command’s business all the time. You have to be present; get out of your office.
Take the long view. The COA may be legal, but it also may be stupid; embrace your role as a command advisor.
However, be clear when you’re giving non-legal advice or counsel. You're one of many advisors, and just one of many perspectives.
Always be the voice of calm in the room.
You won’t know everything. Build and sustain a network of experts to whom you can turn.
Take all of the blame, and none of the credit!
Ignore rank. “You will be amazed at what you can find out when you are nice to everybody, when you treat everybody the same, with the same kind of dignity and respect.”
There will always be enough work to fill the time. Discipline yourself to shut it off; go home. The work will be there when you get back.
Are we lucky to have this guy as an Advisor or what? With a nod to BG (Ret) Gross’s guidance to take none of the credit, I hereby finally reveal that it was BG (Ret) Gross who devised the idea for the Order of the JAGWAR “mentor network”, which we launched earlier this year.
Much gratitude to BG (Ret) Gross and to all the people who contributed to the process of sharing his words.