Happy Thanksgiving! Today, Scott Felder, a retired Army judge advocate and partner with Wiley Rein LLP in Great Falls, VA, talks about what may be the oldest digital judge advocate network, known as the Military Legal Professionals Network or MLPN. Scott took over administration of the network this year and was gracious enough to talk to me about how what it is, how it came about, and how judge advocates can join. Scott also talked about his own career progression as well as th...
Nov 26, 2022•29 min•Transcript available on Metacast In today's podcast, I talk to Jordan Walerstein, who leveraged his time as a member of the U.S. Army JAG Corps to working in the area of technology and security after a brief stint with the Department of Justice. Jordan is a wealth of knowledge, and provides his perspectives on the value of continued military service in the Army Reserves, USAJobs, the challenges associated with immediately going into an in-house counsel office, Amazon's hiring process, what it was like to work there, and e...
Nov 19, 2022•30 min•Ep 46•Transcript available on Metacast In today's podcast, Faisal Akhter talks about his career progression from active duty as a member of the U.S. Army JAG Corps to working at Microsoft, where he now serves as a Senior Corporate Counsel. Faisal shares how his lifetime interest in technology led him to target employment opportunities in the tech sector, the interview process, how the COVID pandemic changed everything, how his experience the Army prepared him to assume his current leadership role as a director, and his belief o...
Nov 12, 2022•30 min•Transcript available on Metacast Mark Fava is a 30-year Navy veteran and an accomplished aviation attorney, and although he credits everyone's favorite JAG and friend to all (Hank Molinengo) with being a critical enabler in his career success, never served as a JAG. Nonetheless, his background as a career Reserve naval aviator and attorney working in both law firms and at Boeing gives him a unique position to provide an outside perspective on the capabilities of JAGs to work in the corporate setting. However, the real take away...
Nov 05, 2022•29 min•Ep 44•Transcript available on Metacast In this episode, we hear from retired Navy Captain Scott Thompson, who currently serves as the Director of DoD's SOCO. Scott and I were classmates in the Naval Justice School's basic lawyer course (Class 94020) from January to March 1994, and then spent two weeks together assigned to USS STUMP (DD 978) where we got our first exposure to the Fleet. Scott went onto hold a number high-visibility jobs before retiring in 2015. He then served briefly as the Executive Director of the Board for Correcti...
Oct 29, 2022•26 min•Ep 43•Transcript available on Metacast Mike Maffei served in active duty in the Navy JAG Corps for 4.5 years before leveraging his experience as a trial and appellate defense counsel to land a job as an assistant prosecutor with the DA's office in San Francisco, where he had clerked during law school. After a stint with the U.S. Attorney's Office, Mike is now a senior security counsel with Google. His LinkedIn profile is found at https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-maffei-attorney. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify...
Oct 22, 2022•30 min•Ep 42•Transcript available on Metacast Don Koenig left the Navy JAG Corps as a lieutenant commander, going from manning the Administrative Law Division's Standards of Conduct and Ethics branch to standing up a healthcare system's corporate responsibility office as it's initial compliance officer. From there, he became the Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer as well as the President of a Level I trauma center and now serves in his current position as a member of the Senior Executive Service. His incredible journey aga...
Oct 08, 2022•29 min•Ep 40•Transcript available on Metacast In this episode, Major Brooks Rose tells us about the stand-up of a virtual Military Officers Association chapter exclusively for judge advocates, active and retired, providing another avenue for networking. For more info, email Brooks at moaajavc@gmail.com --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tom-welsh/support
Oct 01, 2022•22 min•Transcript available on Metacast Drew Massucco and I were classmates in the basic lawyer course at the Naval Justice School in 1994, After a short stint on active duty, Drew transitioned to the Reserves, but ended up spending approximately one-half of the last 28+ years on active duty stints. When not deploying to Afganistan, the Horn of Africa, and GTMO, Drew served as a prosecutor in the US Attorney's offices in Puerto Rick and the U.S. Virgin Islands. In this episode, we talk about the advantages that JAGs ...
Sep 17, 2022•23 min•Ep 37•Transcript available on Metacast BG Gross retired in 2015 after 30 years of service. In this episode, he talks about the mental process of transitioning from the military, the importance of finding oneself and what one wants to do after military service. BG Gross’s Post-military has been as diverse as his active-duty career with stints at a law firm, as a general counsel, teaching, serving as a consultant, and as a highly-qualified expert for the DoD. Affable as ever, General Gross shares the challenges that accompanies doing n...
Sep 10, 2022•28 min•Ep 36•Transcript available on Metacast This week, I talk to retired United States Air Force Colonel Dawn Zoldi who became the U.S. military's foremost expert on legal matters relating to the domestic operation of unmanned aerial vehicles or drones and then parlayed that expertise into a post-government career as an entrepreneur, business owner, consultant, speaker, writer, and podcaster among other things. I am really excited about this episode for several reasons. First, Dawn is the first Air Force JAG to come onto the ...
Sep 03, 2022•28 min•Ep 35•Transcript available on Metacast As military officers, we aspire to be viewed by our contemporaries and subordinates as a good or effective leader. And as we prepare to leave the service, many of us (me included) will often include "Leader" somewhere on our LinkedIn profile or assert it in a resume. But what does leadership look like and how does one quantify it during a job interview? I talked Sean Georges, a former U.S. Marine judge advocate who left the Corps as a major, taking a job with a civilian law firm before serving 2...
Aug 27, 2022•28 min•Ep 34•Transcript available on Metacast CAPT Kevin O'Neil, JAGC, U.S. Navy (Retired), was serving as a military judge, a job which he absolutely loved, when he was diagnosed with a very rare and aggressive form of cancer and began a long and courageous battle for his health. Medically retired in 2015 and finally turning a corner in his health battle, Kevin realized he was bored in retirement and found a way to return to the bench as an administrative law judge for the State of California's Department of Social Services. Like man...
Aug 20, 2022•24 min•Ep 33•Transcript available on Metacast David Bean served less than 5 years as an Army JAG, but, as he explains in this podcast, the experiences he gained during while wearing the uniform have served him well as he has moved from "Big Law" to corporate law. David takes us through his year-long search for a job (which included many rejections), how former JAGs of all services were always willing to give him a hand or introduce him to their networks, and how corporate America values military veterans and the experiences, knowledge...
Aug 13, 2022•26 min•Ep 32•Transcript available on Metacast FourBlock is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization dedicated to supporting separating/retiring service members in their transition from military service to meaningful civilian careers. In this episode, Eric Stetson, a retired Army officer, gives us the gouge on FourBlock. Eric’s LinkedIn profile can be found at https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericstetson1. Information on FourBlock is available at https://fourblock.org/. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tom-welsh/suppor...
Aug 06, 2022•23 min•Ep 31•Transcript available on Metacast Don King retired from the Navy JAG Corps about two years ago. As Don explains in this episode, he wanted to get off the bench and back in front of it. You will hear how he envisioned having a small practice in Southern California, leaving him plenty of time to play golf and enjoy beautiful Coronado. Things, however, have not turned out as planned. Not only is Don not playing much golf due to his thriving practice, but he has had to hire other attorneys to handle the caseload. In this week's epis...
Jul 30, 2022•23 min•Ep 30•Transcript available on Metacast Adam Kantor left the Navy JAG Corps after 7 years back in 2005, a decision which he describes as one of the hardest adult decisions of his life. In this episode, Adam tells us how a recommendation from a friend to talk to an attorney in Tampa, Florida, put him in the position of making a career change, how his seven years of active-duty service prepared him for his civilian law practice and offers words of encouragement to those who are facing the decision to separate or retire. Adam's LinkedIn ...
Jul 23, 2022•24 min•Ep 29•Transcript available on Metacast Mike Millios enjoyed his time in the Army, transitioning to the Reserve Component upon separation. It was while in civilian practice that he recognized how the pressures of today's law practice lead to unhealthy habits and lifestyles. Now in Minnesota, Mike has evolved his practice from criminal defense to mediation, and also become a Wellness and Life Coach, assisting other attorneys and communities embrace Mindfulness and other exercises to live more joyful and less anxious lives. (Apologies t...
Jul 16, 2022•30 min•Ep 28•Transcript available on Metacast This week, we shift gears a little by talking to an active-duty judge advocate who has made the decision to separate from the Navy and begin her post-military career, which has nothing to do with the law. LCDR Leslie Stephenson has served for almost 10 years, but has decided to shift colors and will return to school to pursue a completely different line of work. What that career is, however, requires you to listen to this episode. Leslie explains the factors that led her to this decision, the pr...
Jul 09, 2022•29 min•Ep 27•Transcript available on Metacast Happy Fourth of July! Career military officers approaching retirement have a lot on their plate just to get out of the service as well as finding a second career. One of the things that is not really considered is whether to pursue an alternative to the Survivor Benefit Plan, which costs the retiree 6.5% of their retirement pay over 30 years and provides the surviving spouse with 55% of the member's retainer pay. In this episode, I talk with Scott Tucker, a USMA graduate and former A...
Jul 02, 2022•37 min•Ep 26•Transcript available on Metacast Mike Green became the first judge advocate assigned to the Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program in 2000 because Admiral "Skip" Bowman insisted on having a JAG assigned to his staff. Proving once again that timing is everything in life, Mike was able to leverage his experience at his last assignment to a follow-on career as an attorney at a law firm and then as in-house counsel with a nuclear energy firm before moving over to TerraPower, LLC, this past May, when this conversation was recorded. ...
Jun 25, 2022•30 min•Ep 25•Transcript available on Metacast Beth Kubala retired from the U.S. Army JAG Corps in January 2015 after almost 22 years of service, becoming the Senior Director of Syracuse University's Institute for Veterans and Military Families. In November 2019, she became the Executive Director and Teaching Professor at the Veterans Legal Clinic at the Syracuse University College of Law. In this episode, Beth explains she took the a bus on the Greyhound on the Hudson River Line 'cause she's in a New York state of mind, where she is able to...
Jun 18, 2022•23 min•Ep 24•Transcript available on Metacast If Jonathan Goldsmith was the most "The Most Interesting Man in the World" in those Dos Equis beer commercials, then CDR Scott Suozzi, USN,must be the World's Most Interesting Retired JAG. After a short stint as a civilian mariner on a oil tanker at the age of 16, Scott went onto graduate from the U.S. Naval Academy, become and deploy as a Surface Warfare Officer, teach at the Naval Academy, and then transition to the Navy JAG Corp's where he served in a number of diverse roles around the ...
Jun 11, 2022•28 min•Ep 23•Transcript available on Metacast Joe Moyer packed a lot into just four years on active duty in the US Navy JAGC Corps, serving as an in-house counsel, appellate counsel, and a year in Afghanistan, where he really got his first consulting experience working as an advisor to Afghan government officials and lawyers on rule of law issues. He also met and worked with some individuals who would become of his network and who have helped in his post-Navy career progression. In this episode, Joe tells us about his journey fr...
Jun 04, 2022•27 min•Ep 22•Transcript available on Metacast It purely a coincidence that my conversation with COL Walt Foster, USAR, is being released the same week that "Top Gun: Maverick" is released. The connection is that Walt initially entered military service in 1987 to become a naval aviator, thereby giving credence to the scenario in which Maverick could possibly still be serving over 30 years later. There are differences however as Maverick was already a lieutenant in 1986 while Walt entered as an ensign that year. Additionally, Walt...
May 28, 2022•30 min•Ep 21•Transcript available on Metacast Dan Saumur and I first met as O-4s at the DFAC at Camp Victory, Iraq. We then had the opportunity to work together again when he was the SJA for U.S. Army South and I was the SJA at JTF-GTMO. Dan became a very frequent contributor on transition-related matters on LinkedIn as he approached his own retirement and his transition to a post-military career. In this episode, Dan talks about his priorities when it came to a follow-on career with location, in this instance San Antonio,...
May 21, 2022•25 min•Ep 20•Transcript available on Metacast Following his retirement from the Navy JAG Corps, Steve Epstein went on to work in ethics for the Navy Office of General Counsel and the Department of Defense Office of General Counsel where he served as the director of its Standard of Conduct Office, before going to work for Price Waterhouse Coopers and Boeing. I sat down with Steve to talk all things ethics and compliance, a must for anyone thinking of entering the compliance world upon leaving the JAG Corps. Please note, that the audio drops ...
May 14, 2022•30 min•Ep 18•Transcript available on Metacast In this episode, we learn about Mark Nevitt's incredible journey from entering the Navy as a line officer flying the venerable S-3 Viking from the USS CONSTELLATION (CV-64) to serving in the Navy JAGC and now as a law school professor following his retirement in 2017 after a 20-year career. Mark provides some great insight into the different paths to becoming a tenured law school professor, including the narrow path available for JAGs desiring to enter academia, the importance of scholarly...
May 07, 2022•28 min•Ep 18•Transcript available on Metacast John and I served together at Naval Legal Service Office, Mid-Atlantic in the mid-1990s. A surface warfare officer who transitioned to the JAG Corps via the Legal Education Program, he quickly established himself as a skilled litigator, both as a prosecutor and defense counsel. Given his great credentials, a line officer, his courtroom skills and because his father had been a career judge advocate, many of us thought John would remain on active duty for a long time. However, Jo...
Apr 30, 2022•29 min•Ep 17•Transcript available on Metacast On February 24, 2022, I had the opportunity of talking to Captain Stu Belt, JAGC, U.S. Navy (Retired), who continues to support and serve the men and women in the Navy as an attorney with the Navy Office of General Counsel (OGC) after a 24 years as a judge advocate. Stu takes us through his decision to retire, how assisting Military Sealift command with some international law issues while on active duty provided him with unique insight into the issues with which they were dealing with an O...
Apr 23, 2022•27 min•Ep 16•Transcript available on Metacast 
