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Directors, Officers, & Board of Advisors

Our Directors and Advisors have decades of experience as military Judge Advocates in the U.S. Army, Marine Corps, Navy, Air Force and Coast Guard, and include scholars who focus on domestic and international military law and justice, the law of war and military commissions, and veterans’ issues that are affected by the military justice system. Our Advisors are a vital resource for those seeking to understand the functioning of the military justice system in the United States.

Directors, Officers, & Board of Advisors

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Name Position
Chairman, Board of Directors
President Emeritus and Director
Director and General Counsel Emeritus
Director
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President
Vice President
General Counsel
Treasurer
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Chairman, Board of Directors

Ronald W. Meister

Ronald W. Meister, NIMJ’s Board Chair, is in private practice in New York City, where he concentrates on commercial and intellectual property litigation, in addition to military law.  He served in the U.S. Navy Judge Advocate General’s Corps in the 1970’s as a trial and defense counsel and as a Special Court-Martial Military Judge.

On behalf of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., the American Civil Liberties Union, and the New York City Bar Association, he participated in arguments before the United States Court of Military Appeals that led to the abolition of the military death penalty.  He has written of his experiences as a military lawyer in articles including  “An Ensign for the Coffin” (Yale Law Report) and “I Saw Shaft Seven Times” (Military Justice Gazette).

He coordinates NIMJ’s program sending observers to military commission hearings at Guantanamo Bay, and has been awarded the Beacon of Justice Award of the National Legal Aid and Defender Association and the Human Rights Award of the Southern Center for Human Rights for pro bono litigation on behalf of Guantanamo Bay prisoners.  Mr. Meister also serves as Town Justice in the Town of Mamaroneck, in Westchester County, New York.

President Emeritus and Director

Eugene R. Fidell

Eugene R. Fidell is Florence Rogatz Visiting Lecturer at Yale Law School, where his courses include Military Justice and Guantanamo. He is a co-founder of NIMJ and edits the Global Military Justice Reform blog. He served in the U. S. Coast Guard and is of counsel to Feldesman Tucker Leifer Fidell LLP in Washington, DC.

Director and General Counsel Emeritus

Stephen A. Saltzburg

Director

David Brahms

Director

Philip D. Cave

Cdr. (Ret.) Phil D. Cave, is a retired Navy judge advocate, now a sole practitioner, focusing exclusively on military law and security clearance law issues. Phil came to America in 1972, having spent seven years with the Metropolitan Police in London, England. After graduating from the Case Western Reserve Law School in 1979, he attended the Naval Justice School; and then reported to his first assignment at Naval Legal Service Office Norfolk, to be a defense counsel and then a trial counsel (prosecutor).

Over the next 20 years Phil served as a Navy judge advocate in various military justice related assignments: twice as a defense counsel, twice as a trial counsel (prosecutor), three times as a staff judge advocate (command legal advisor), and as an appeals lawyer.  In his last few years of active duty he served in the Navy office responsible Military Justice (legislation, regulation, policy) matters, as well as sitting as a member of the Naval Clemency & Parole Board.

Phil has broad experience in courts-martial ranging from simple AWOL/UA cases to complicated murder, sex assault, and national security cases, and as a NIMJ Director has filed and argued amicus petitions on behalf of NIMJ before the Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces (CAAF) in cases of significant interest.

Phil earned his JD from Case Western Reserve University, and an LL.M. from George Washington University.  He is admitted to practice in the U.S. Supreme Court, all military trial and appellate courts, Virginia, Washington, D.C., Ohio, the Eastern District of Virginia, and the federal Court of Claims.

Director

Mary Cheh

Director

Elizabeth L. Hillman

Dr. Elizabeth L. Hillman, an Air Force veteran, has a distinguished background in higher education with a focus on key gender and women’s issues. She currently serves as president of Mills College, an independent liberal arts college for women and gender non-binary students, with graduate programs for all genders, located in the heart of the San Francisco Bay Area. At Mills, she has articulated an agenda that places Mills at the forefront of the national movement for educational access and equity. This strategic road map builds on Mills’ historic commitment to gender and racial justice, and espouses a new commitment to accessibility and affordability alongside inclusive excellence in the arts and sciences, humanities, and technology.

Dr. Hillman’s expertise in sexual violence and gender issues in military organizations and culture has brought her national and international recognition. She has been an expert witness testifying before Congress on numerous occasions, including at the Congressional Women’s Caucus hearing to address nonconsensual pornography in the U.S. Military (Marines United). She is a sought-after educator and speaker on the topics of sexual assault and harassment, and women’s leadership and rights.

In 2013–2014, she served on the Response Systems to the Adult Sexual Assault Crimes Panel (RSP), an independent panel chartered by the U.S. Congress to study and make recommendations about sexual assault in the U.S. military. She also chaired the RSP’s Comparative Systems Subcommittee, leading the preparation and drafting of a comprehensive report recommending significant changes to improve military responses to sexual assault.

In 2017, she was named as a member of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine Committee Addressing Sexual Harassment in the Science, Engineering, and Medical Workplaces, and became a founding president of the President’s Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration, which seeks to influence the policy-making process on immigration, especially the policies that affect undocumented students. In 2018, she was appointed NCAA Division III Chancellors and Presidents Advisory Group, and to the board of the Women’s College Coalition.

President

Dru A. Brenner-Beck

Dru Brenner-Beck is an attorney in private practice in Highlands Ranch, Colorado, and consults and writes on international law and the law of armed conflict, as well as the Guantanamo military commissions.

She served in the U.S. Army initially as a Military Intelligence officer, serving as a tactical intelligence officer for an Infantry Brigade, and then as a member of the Judge Advocate General’s Corps from 1992-2004. As a Judge Advocate, LTC (Ret.) Brenner-Beck served worldwide as a prosecutor, an administrative law attorney, an Army litigator, the Chief of Military and Civil Law for the US Army, Europe, and as Deputy General Counsel for the Department of the Army Inspector General. After retirement she served as a Law Clerk to The Honorable Carlos F. Lucero of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit.

She has written numerous book chapters and legal articles dealing with international humanitarian law, US treaty practice, and military and criminal law issues. She graduated from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, Boston University’s School of Law and earned an LL.M in military law from the US Army Judge Advocate General’s Legal Center and School. She is also the current President of the National Institute of Military Justice.

Vice President

Rachel VanLandingham

Professor Rachel VanLandingham, Lt Col, USAF (ret), is an Associate Professor of Law at Southwestern Law School where she teaches criminal law, criminal procedure, and national security law.  She is a NIMJ Advisor and is currently serving as the Vice President.  The highlight of her military career was from 2006-2010, when she provided operational legal advice to military commanders as Chief, International Law, U.S. Central Command. She is co-editor of the recent Oxford University Press book Military Operations: Law, Policy, and Practice.

General Counsel

Brian Baldrate

Brian serves as the Vice President and General Counsel of Raytheon’s International and Washington Operations. Brian’s career has included government service, private practice and experience as in-house corporate counsel.

He began his career as a cavalry officer in the U.S. Army and subsequently served as an attorney in the Army Judge Advocate General’s Corps. He spent several years as a criminal prosecutor, including a year-long deployment in Iraq, where he was awarded the Bronze Star Medal. Brian also spent several years detailed to the Department of Justice’s Civil Division and as a Special Assistant United States Attorney in United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia. Following thirteen years of government service, Brian practiced white collar criminal defense before joining Raytheon in 2012.

He has written, taught and spoken extensively on criminal and international law, anti-corruption and international compliance-related subjects. Brian graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point and received an M.P.A. from the University of Connecticut. He received his J.D from the University of Connecticut School of Law, where he was valedictorian of his class and editor-in-chief of the Connecticut Law Review. Brian also earned an LL.M from the Army Judge Advocate General’s School and continues to serve as a Lieutenant Colonel in the U.S. Army Reserves where he currently serves as an adjunct professor teaching military law at the United States Military Academy.

Treasurer

Hardy Vieux

Advisor

Diane Marie Amann

Diane Marie Amann is the Associate Dean for International Programs & Strategic Initiatives and the Emily & Ernest Woodruff Chair in International Law, Dean Rusk International Law Center, University of Georgia School of Law, Athens, Georgia.

Since 2012 she has also served as the Special Adviser to International Criminal Court Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda on Children in & affected by Armed Conflict. Her expertise includes law and policy on: national and collective security; the use of force, laws of war, international humanitarian law, and international criminal law; domestic and comparative constitutional law; and civil rights and human rights law.

She was the principal author of NIMJ’s brief to the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of Hamdan v. Rumsfeld (2006), and has observed Guantanamo military commissions proceedings as an NIMJ representative.

Advisor

Aaron Belkin

Advisor

Eric Carpenter

Professor Carpenter joined the Florida International University College of Law in 2013. He served as a helicopter pilot in the Army for five years before attending law school under the Army’s Funded Legal Education Program. Following law school, he served as a legal aid attorney, international law attorney, prosecutor, and supervising defense counsel in the Army JAG Corps. He deployed to Afghanistan in 2003 and served as the lead defense attorney on a capital murder case from 2007-2009.

From 2010 to 2013, he helped develop training and policy to address the sexual assault issue in the military while teaching at the Army’s law school in Charlottesville, Virginia, where he was the Chair of the Criminal Law Department.

His research interests are in military justice, sexual violence against women, and capital litigation, He was elected to the American Law Institute in 2013, is a member of the ABA’s Military Justice Committee, and is an affiliated faculty member with the FIU Center for Women’s and Gender Studies.

Advisor

John A. Carr

Advisor

Phillip Carter

Advisor

Kevin Cieply

Kevin Cieply is the President and Dean of Ave Maria School of Law, and a retired Colonel, Army National Guard.  Dean Cieply served as the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Associate Professor at Atlanta’s John Marshall Law School.

Dean Cieply also served for more than 22 years in the Army and Wyoming Army National Guard as a helicopter pilot, Company Commander, and a Judge Advocate General Corps (JAG).  His last military assignment was as the Chief, Legal Operations (Land), North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) and U.S. Northern Command (NORTHCOM), concentrating on counterterrorism and Defense Support of Civilian Authorities.

He is admitted to practice in Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, and Wyoming, the Ninth and Tenth Circuit Courts of Appeal, and the U.S. Supreme Court.

Advisor

Geoffrey S. Corn

Geoffrey S. Corn is the Vinsen & Elkins Professor of Law at South Texas College of Law Houston in Houston Texas. Prior to joining the South Texas College of Law Houston faculty in 2005, Professor Corn served in the U.S. Army for 21 years as an officer, retiring in the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. His Army career included service as both an intelligence officer and a military attorney, including prior assignments as chief prosecutor for the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) and Regional Defense Counsel for the Western United States, Alaska, and Hawaii..His last position as a civilian with the Army was as senior law of war expert advisor for The Army Judge Advocate General and Chief of the Law of War Branch.

Professor Corn’s teaching and scholarship focuses on the law of armed conflict, national security law, criminal law and procedure, and prosecutorial ethics. He has appeared an expert witness at the Military Commission in Guantanamo, the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, and in federal court. He is the lead author of The Law of Armed Conflict: An Operational Perspective, and The Laws of War and the War on Terror, and National Security Law and Policy: a Student Treatise.

He earned is B.A. from Hartwick College in Oneonta, NY, his J.D. with highest honors from George Washington University, his LLM as the distinguished graduate from the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General’s School.

Advisor

Dennis Curtis

Advisor

Miles P. Fischer

Advisor

David Frakt

David has 23 years of active and reserve service as an officer in the Air Force Judge Advocate General’s Corps, including as a military prosecutor and defense counsel, and will retire as a Lieutenant Colonel in September 2018. David has previously taught as a law professor at several law schools, including Georgetown and the University of Pittsburgh, specializing in military law, the law of war, criminal law, criminal procedure, evidence and trial advocacy.  He is best known for his successful defense of Mohammed Jawed, a Guantanamo detainee, before the military commissions.  He is a respected scholar with over 40 publications, including over a dozen law review articles, many related to Guantanamo and the military commissions.    He is a frequent commentator in the news media, with numerous appearances on NPR, NBC, MSNBC and CNN, and is frequently quoted in leading periodicals on matters related to military justice and national security law.

Advisor

Matthew Freedus

Advisor

David Glazier

Professor David Glazier, Cdr, USN (ret), is a Professor of Law at Loyola Law School, Los Angeles where he teaches courses on International Law, International Criminal Law, the Law of War, and Law and the Use of Force. Dave spent twenty-one years on active duty as a surface warfare officer, culminating in command of the guided-missile frigate USS George Philip before retiring in order to attend law school at the University of Virginia. His scholarship focuses on combating terrorism within existing legal constraints and the Guantanamo military commissions.

Advisor

Robert Kogod Goldman

Advisor

Victor Hansen

Professor Hansen teaches Criminal Law, Criminal Procedure, Evidence, and Prosecutorial Ethics at New England Law | Boston. Before joining the New England Law faculty in 2005, he served a 20-year career in the US Army, most of that time as a JAG Corps officer. In his last military assignment, he served as a regional defense counsel for the US Army Trial Defense Service. His previous assignments include work as a military prosecutor and supervising prosecutor. He has been involved in military capital litigation as a prosecutor and as a defense attorney. He also served as an associate professor of law at The Judge Advocate General’s Legal Center and School in Charlottesville, Virginia. He is the author of several articles and books on criminal and military law, evidence, and national security issues

Advisor

Scott Horton

Advisor

Chris Jenks

Professor Chris Jenks, LTC, USA (ret), is a Professor of Law at the SMU Dedman School of Law  where he teaches criminal law, evidence, the law of armed conflict, and directs the criminal justice clinic.  He preciously served for 20 years in the United States Army, including 10 years as a member of the Judge Advocate General’s Corps.  During that time he served as the lead prosecutor in the Army’s first counter-terrorism case, a fully contested classified courts-martial of a US Army National Guard soldier who attempted to aid the al Qaeda terrorist network. Professor Jenks finished his military career as the Army’s Chief, International Law Branch, in the Pentagon.  He is the author of book chapters and articles on military justice and the law of armed conflict.

Advisor

Eric T. Jensen

Professor Eric Talbot Jensen, LTC, USA (ret), is a Professor of Law at Brigham Young University Law School where he teaches criminal law, international law, the law of armed conflict, and national security law.  He preciously served for 20 years in the United States Army, including 15 years as a member of the Judge Advocate General’s Corps, finishing his career as the Army’s Chief, International Law Branch.  He is the author of numerous books, book chapters, and articles on the topics of international law and the law of armed conflict.

Advisor

John Paul Jones

John Paul Jones serves as a NIMJ Advisor. He retired in 2014 from the University of Richmond, where he taught military law, constitutional law, and admiralty law. After law school, he served the Court of Claims as a chambers clerk and the CIA as a visiting scholar.

He edited the book, Dr. Mudd and the Lincoln Assassination, and has written extensively for law journals and encyclopedias. A former Naval Flight Officer and intelligence officer, he retired with the rank of Captain after heading the Naval Investigative Service Reserve Office in Norfolk, Virginia.

Advisor

Jeff Kahn

Advisor

Frederic Lederer

Fredric Lederer, Colonel, USAR, retired, is Chancellor Professor of Law and Director, Center for Legal and Court Technology, at William & Mary Law School where, among other courses, he teaches criminal procedure, evidence, technology augmented trial practice and military law. He is a co-author of the Military Rules of Evidence and the author of the Analysis of those rules. For four years, via appointment by the Secretary of Defense, with Gene Fidell he served as a public member of the Code Committee, which oversees military criminal law.  With Fran Gilligan, he is the co-author of the treatise, Court-Martial Procedure.

Advisor

Christopher Mathews

Christopher Mathews, Lt Col, USAF (ret) is an attorney in private practice, currently on sabbatical studying sustainable energy science at Reykjavik University in Iceland. His recent writings have included an introductory note for Military Court Rules of the United States (2d Ed. 2014). Prior to his retirement from the service, he served as a judge of the Air Force Court of Criminal Appeals.

Advisor

Melissa Epstein Mills

Advisor

Michael Navarre

Advisor

Jack Nevin

Jack F. Nevin is a Superior Court Judge in Tacoma Washington. Judge Nevin is retired from the Army Reserve where he holds the rank of Brigadier General. In his last duty position he held a “dual hatted” position, serving as Chief Judge of the US Army Court of Criminal Appeals and Commander US Army Reserve Legal Command (Provisional). His Army career included duty in Asia, Europe, Central America, South America, Africa, and the Balkan Peninsula. In 2009 he was awarded the Army’s Distinguished Service Medal.

In 2001 Judge Nevin served as Presiding Judge for the Detention Review Commission, United Nations Command, Kosovo. In 2002 he assisted the government of El Salvador in establishing its first victim witness assistance program. Most recently, Judge Nevin has focused his effort in the areas of post conflict governance, where in both civilian and military roles he has worked in areas ranging from the development of ethnically neutral bar examinations in Kosovo, to judicial training in Bosnia-Herzegovina and former Soviet Union. In 2005 he assisted the Federation of Bosnia-Herzegovina in development of a new criminal code. He has lectured in Argentina on the development of Public Disclosure legislation and in Africa on the successful prosecution of government corruption. In 2009-2011 he lectured on issues of public corruption in Sierra Leone, Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Republic of Chad.

Judge Nevin is a 1996 graduate of the Air War College and 1998 graduate of the Army War College. He currently serves on the board of advisors of the National Institute of Military Justice through which he provides guidance and assistance to both the legislative and executive branches of government on a host of military law issues. In this capacity, he also served as a trial observer at the Office of Military Commissions, Military Tribunals Guantanamo Bay Cuba.

Judge Nevin has lectured throughout the United States on a host of subjects focusing primarily on trial practice and the rules of evidence. He serves as faculty for the National Institute of Trial Advocacy and the Washington State Judicial College. Judge Nevin has taught on the undergraduate and graduate level for approximately thirty years, lecturing and publishing extensively in subjects ranging from military retirement benefits as community property to post conflict governance and the international law implications of military tribunals.

Judge Nevin holds a BA from Washington State University and an MBA\J.D. from Gonzaga University.

Advisor

Richard Rosen

Richard D. Rosen, COL, U.S. Army (retired), is the Glenn D. West Endowed Professor of Law and Director of the Center for Military Law & Policy at the Texas Tech University School of Law. He teaches Constitutional Law, Torts, Military Law, International Humanitarian Law, and Human Rights Law.

He served on active duty as an Army judge advocate for 26 years, completing his military career as Commandant of the Army’s Judge Advocate General’s School.

Advisor

Edward Sherman

Edward F. Sherman, former Dean and David Boies Distinguished Chair at Tulane Law School, teaches Civil Procedure, Complex Litigation, Mediation and Arbitration, and (occasionally) Military Law.  He served as an Army Reserve JAG for over twenty years and as defense counsel in a number of courts martial, both trial and appellate.  He was counsel for the ACLU  in a number of constitutional cases in federal courts involving service members’ rights.  He was co-author of one of the first law school casebooks on military law.

Advisor

Arnon Siegel

Advisor

Gary Solis

Gary Solis (JD, UC Davis; LLM (criminal law) George Washington Law; PhD (law of war) London School of Economics & Political Science) served 8 years as a Marine Corps assault amphibian officer, 18 years as a judge advocate.  As counsel or military judge he participated in 763 courts-martial.  He is a retired U.S. Military Academy professor of law, and expert legal witness in military and civilian trials, including 8 military commissions. He has published two books on military law, a law of war textbook, and numerous military law-related articles.

Advisor

Alexis N. Stackhouse

Advisor

Beth Van Schaack

Beth Van Schaack is a Fellow with the Center for the Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University for the 2017-18 academic year. Previously, she was the Leah Kaplan Visiting Professor in Human Rights at Stanford Law School—where she taught in the areas of international human rights, international criminal law, and atrocities prevention—and a Faculty Fellow with the Handa Center for Human Rights & International Justice at Stanford University. Prior to returning to academia, she served as Deputy to the Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes Issues in the Office of Global Criminal Justice of the U.S. Department of State. In that capacity, she helped to advise the Secretary of State and the Under Secretary for Civilian Security, Democracy and Human Rights on the formulation of U.S. policy regarding the prevention of and accountability for mass atrocities, such as war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide. This involved extensive work within the interagency to help coordinate the deployment of a range of diplomatic, legal, economic, military, and intelligence tools to help expose the truth, capture and judge those responsible, protect and assist victims, enable reconciliation, deter atrocities, and build the rule of law.

Prior to her State Department appointment, Van Schaack was Full Professor of Law at Santa Clara University School of Law, where she taught and wrote in the areas of human rights, transitional justice, international criminal law, public international law, international humanitarian law, and civil procedure. In this capacity, she served as the Academic Adviser to the United States interagency delegation to the International Criminal Court Review Conference in Kampala, Uganda in 2010.

Van Schaack joined the Santa Clara faculty from private practice at Morrison & Foerster LLP where she practiced the areas of commercial law, intellectual property, international law, and human rights. Prior to entering private practice, Van Schaack was Acting Executive Director and Staff Attorney with The Center for Justice & Accountability (CJA), a non-profit law firm in San Francisco dedicated to the representation of victims of torture and other grave human rights abuses in U.S., international, and foreign tribunals. She was also a law clerk with the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. She continues to advise a number of human rights and international justice organizations, including: the Documentation Center of Cambodia (DC-Cam), the International Institute for Criminal Investigations (IICI), the National Institute of Military Justice (NIMJ), the International Justice Resource Center (IJRC), the Syrian Commission on International Justice & Accountability (CIJA), CJA, and Accountability Council.

Van Schaack is a graduate of Stanford University and Yale Law School.

Advisor

Raymond Toney

Raymond Toney is a private practitioner specializing in military administrative law matters and judicial review of military decisions. He has particular interest in the procedures and practices of the boards for the correction of military records and discharge review boards. Mr. Toney has successfully litigated a variety of military law matters in federal district courts, federal courts of appeal, and the U.S. Court of Federal Claims.

Advisor

Steve Vladeck

Advisor

Colby Vokey

Colby Vokey, LtCol USMC (Ret.), is one of the top military trial lawyers in the country.  He has been involved in more than 20 war crimes cases in the last ten years and continues to represent military clients worldwide in serious and complex military justice cases.  He also represented Guantanamo Bay detainee Omar Khadr on murder, terrorism and spying charges before the Military Commissions.  He is the recipient of numerous military and civilian awards, including the American Bar Association’s Charles R. English Criminal Defense Lawyer of the Year.

Advisor

Sean Watts

Sean Watts is a Professor of Law at Creighton University Law School, where he teaches Constitutional Law, Federal Habeas Corpus, Federal Courts, the Law of Armed Conflict, and International Criminal Law. He is a Senior Fellow at the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Center of Excellence and served on a defense team at the International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia. He served as an active-duty Judge Advocate and Armor officer and continues to serve as a Reservist.

Advisor

Bridget Wilson

Advisor

Donald N. Zillman

Donald Zillman is the Edward Godfrey Professor of Law at the University of Maine Law School. He had four years of active and 12 years of reserve service in the Army JAGC. His teaching and research interests focus on military-civilian relations, NOT military justice. He regularly studies the presence of military veterans in the U.S. Congress. He is the author (with Elizabeth Elsbach) of Living the World War: A Weekly Exploration of the American Experience in World War I: Volume One. (2016 Vandeplas Press). Volume TWO is expected to appear in May 2017.