Photo By Master Sgt. Jason Wilkerson | United States Department of Justice Assistant Director Doug Mickle speaks on Bid...... read more read more
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. – Ladies and gentlemen considering joining the JAG Corps.
“Get involved – stay engaged. To be relevant, you need to be engaged with the organization and be a problem solver. Lawyers are called on by clients to solve problems within the constraints of the law. If you want to be an integral part of the team, don’t just tell your clients what they can’t do – but propose a course of action that achieves the objective that is consistent with the law.”
“The ‘easy’ case is never easy.”
“Analyze your case by thinking strategically.”
“Doing the right thing is never the wrong thing. Or another way of saying this is: doing the principled thing will never be the wrong course of action.”
“You can’t put a price on your integrity.”
“Follow regulations – avoid short cuts.”
“When writing a brief or memo – avoid acronyms or jargon – and strive for brevity. I’ve been filing briefs in court for over 30 years, and I never once had a judge tell me ‘Doug, why did you stop at 50 pages? I wish you submitted even more arguments.’”
“Return your phone calls and do so in a timely manner.”
“A positive attitude is a force multiplier. A smile goes a long way.”
“[But trust me on the] get involved – stay engaged. Most judge advocates will do their best advocacy not in a court room, but in a room advising a commander or staff officer how to solve a problem.”
United States Department of Justice Assistant Director Doug Mickle should know a thing or two about the Judge Advocate General’s Corp. He currently leads the Bid Protest Team in the National Courts Section of the Commercial Litigation Branch. But before that, the retired lieutenant colonel served more than a decade in the nation’s oldest law firm.
“I was being recruited to play football by several colleges in the Northeast, one of which was Army,” said Mickle. “I was fortunate to receive a 4-year ROTC scholarship and that started me on my 21-year Army career.”
The Distinguished Military Graduate of St. Lawrence University’s very first duty station in Germany was only his second favorite ... but it proved quite pivotal. More on his favorite in a bit. “The life and professional lessons I learned in those 39 months in Germany established a great foundation for me as I progressed up the ranks in the Army,” recalled Mickle. “While I was on my first tour, I had two very close friends from college who went to law school. Every time I returned to the states on leave, I visited them and was struck how that educational experience had impacted their lives.”
His second assignment in Germany as commander of a personnel office in Boblingen (U.S. Army Garrison Stuttgart) cemented Mickle’s desire to join the most consequential practice of law on earth. “In that role I worked closely with the assigned judge advocates on Panzer Kaserne and thought what they did and how they interacted with the commanders and staff was very interesting,” said Mickle. “When I learned that the Army would send some junior officers to law school, I applied to the FLEP (Funded Legal Education Program). Much to everyone in my chain of command’s surprise, and mine too, I was selected.”
Mickle’s “tour” at George Washington University Law School as a FLEP proved to be his absolute favorite for one obvious reason. “This is where I met my wife,” explained Mickle. “Many will say she is the main reason I am working for the Department of Justice and not being prosecuted by them.”
All jokes aside, the legal knowledge he gained in DC and honed at various assignments around the world serves Mickle even now. “The Deputy Staff Judge Advocate [when I was] Chief of Justice at Fort Knox was Lt. Col. Nolon J. Benson (now retired). Col. Benson was a litigator’s litigator and really taught me so much about case management and trial preparation – skills I still use today in fact.
“In the Army I was primarily a military justice litigator and while at the Litigation Division I handled military personnel matters almost exclusively. I was hired at the Department of Justice primarily because of my background litigating military personnel cases.
“It is funny as I think about it, but nowadays I am probably best known as a government contracts litigator – but in the Army I only litigated a few government contract matters. And that was during my last tour when I was the Chief of the General Litigation Branch.”
So how exactly does a military justice focused judge advocate become the head of the Department of Justice’s Bid Protest Practice Group in charge of litigating federal procurement contracts whose total value has at times exceeded $100 billion annually? Mind you, that’s billions with a B.
“In criminal law, there are elements of the crime, and you must ensure the facts fit the elements to prove the charge,” explained Mickle. “[In government procurement cases] there are governing rules, the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR), to apply – so when litigating these cases we are applying the facts of the procurement against these rules. In this sense, procurement cases are akin to the work I did when I was prosecuting criminal law matters.”
Mickle, even 21 years removed from military service, continues to share his expertise on litigating bid protests, contract disputes and military personnel matters with today’s judge advocates. His sense of duty to the nation’s warfighters even earned him the DOJ’s highest recognition. Mickle received the John Marshall Award for his work defending and spearheading the resolution of several lawsuits filed in the United States Court of Federal Claims by thousands of disabled combat veterans who were challenging the process the Department of Defense and the military services used when assigning disability ratings for their Post Traumatic Stress Disorder injuries. “Because I knew that much-needed medical benefits were a major reason behind plaintiffs’ claims I acted as an intermediary between the plaintiffs and the various subject matter experts from the DOD and Department of Veterans Affairs,” explained Mickle. “In the end, our efforts led to a 17-page resolution framework setting forth how over 2,100 combat veterans would have their military records corrected to reflect agreed upon ratings for PTSD. This framework, while taking months to craft, saved an estimated seven years of litigation. More importantly, it afforded injured veterans access to much needed medical care and other benefits.”
Looking back on his Army service, Mickle wishes someone had told him just how much fun he was going to have. “Yes, you might make a bigger paycheck working at a firm,” said Mickle. “But the JAG Corps provides so many other opportunities to develop skill sets that the private sector simply does not provide to include time management, personal responsibility, leadership, and it goes without saying – the chance to first-chair a case long before you ever would see a courtroom as a young associate at a big firm.”
| Date Taken: | 07.19.2024 |
| Date Posted: | 07.18.2024 10:31 |
| Story ID: | 476325 |
| Location: | CHARLOTTESVILLE, VIRGINIA, US |
| Web Views: | 82 |
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