From briefing clients to briefing soldiers

I was scheduled to begin a four-day, civil jury trial in Baltimore on Thursday, April 30. The night before, co-counsel and I had agreed to terms with opposing counsel for a settlement of the case.

Little did I know that just hours after signing the settlement order in court, I would be reporting for active duty with the Maryland Army National Guard to respond to the civil disturbance in Baltimore City.

As a judge advocate, I am one of a handful of legal advisers to the Maryland National Guard Commands. While it is common for National Guard soldiers to be activated through a declared state of emergency for natural disaster relief, it is in rare instances when Guard soldiers are activated to respond to civil disturbances. In our hyper-litigious society, you can be sure when troops are being deployed with weapons into a major U.S. city, commanders want their legal advisers ready and available around the clock.

The U.S. Army’s mission is to fight and win our nation’s wars by providing prompt, sustained land dominance across the full range of military operations and spectrum of conflict in support of combatant commanders. We constantly train and have experience fighting in foreign lands against an elusive enemy. We are ready to identify and engage the enemy with fire superiority and tactical prowess.

Standing in front of a room of soldiers wearing tactical vests and helmets and carrying weapons and ammunition, I am prepared to provide them their rules of engagement briefing before their next mission.

But the legal briefing for Baltimore was different than the one I usually provide and this mission was different than the ones the soldiers are accustomed.

I reminded the soldiers we are being deployed into a city in our own country among American civilians. I advised hundreds of soldiers, many of them combat veterans, to use as little force as necessary. Our mission is different and therefore our mindset also has to be different, I said.

As troops were being deployed into the city, it was important they received legal briefs regarding the rules for the use of and escalation of force. It is important for them to understand the expectations of appropriate responses and the legal implications of various courses of actions.

I provided numerous briefings to deploying soldiers from the late evening until the early morning of the following day. The entire experience seemed so surreal.

As judge advocates we were faced with many legal questions ranging from how accidents are reported to how injury claims are processed to how use-of-force incidents are handled to how potential employment issues for activated soldiers are addressed and other domestic operation-law questions regarding military functions during civil disturbance missions.

Late one evening I am preparing for a four-day civil jury trial in Baltimore and the following evening I am in a room filled with soldiers preparing them for a deployment into Baltimore. I am certainly grateful for the sacrifices made by our National Guard service members who serve in a dual role, both for the state militia and the national armed forces.  As service members in the National Guard, we are asked to place our entire civilian lives on hold with little-to-no notice to respond to the call of not only our nation, but also our state in times of crisis.