Stationed Overseas: Should You Hire a Stateside or Local Military Defense Lawyer?

You’re stationed overseas and under investigation. Should you hire whoever happens to be near your base, or bring in an experienced civilian military defense lawyer from the United States? If you’re dealing with a minor matter, geography and cost may matter. But if you’re facing an Article 120 sexual assault allegation, a serious felony-level offense, years or even life in prison, sex offender registration, the loss of your retirement, or a board that could end your career, choosing your lawyer primarily because that lawyer happens to live nearby can be a very expensive mistake.

I’m Alexandra González-Waddington, civilian military defense lawyer and co-founder of Gonzalez & Waddington. For more than 26 years, we’ve defended service members in serious military cases throughout the United States and overseas, including Europe, Korea, Japan, Okinawa, and the Middle East. Here’s what you need to understand. The closest lawyer is not necessarily the best lawyer. When your freedom, career, retirement, reputation, and future are on the line, you should be looking for the best military defense lawyer for your particular case, not simply the lawyer with the shortest drive to the installation.

You might save some money on travel by hiring somebody who lives outside the gate. But what are you sacrificing to save that money? If the government is accusing you of an offense that could put you in prison, require sex offender registration, destroy your career, or cost you a military retirement, a few thousand in travel expenses should not determine who stands next to you in court. You wouldn’t choose a heart surgeon simply because the office was closest to your house. A serious court-martial should be approached the same way. Hire based on experience, skill, judgment, preparation, trial ability, and whether that lawyer is right for your case, not geography.

The UCMJ doesn’t change because you’re stationed in Germany, Italy, Korea, Japan, or somewhere else overseas. An Article 120 sexual assault case overseas is still an Article 120 case. The Military Rules of Evidence still apply. Article 31 still applies. The government still has prosecutors, investigators, experts, commanders, and institutional resources working against you. So your first question shouldn’t be who’s nearby. It should be, who do I want defending me if this goes to trial?

There’s another issue you need to consider overseas: independence. Overseas military communities can be very small. Lawyers, prosecutors, investigators, commanders, staff judge advocates, military families, and civilian professionals may know each other socially and professionally. Some civilian lawyers overseas previously worked in that military community. Some have spouses or significant others working for the military or federal government. Some previously worked in the local prosecutor’s office. Some may know the prosecutors, investigators, commanders, or other people involved in your case. None of that automatically creates a conflict, but you should ask questions.

Why is this lawyer living there? What relationships does the lawyer have with the local military legal community? Did the lawyer previously work in the local SJA office? Does a spouse or partner work for the military, federal government, law enforcement, prosecution, or command? Does the lawyer regularly socialize with the prosecutors? Does the lawyer know the investigators handling your case? Has the lawyer represented witnesses or other people involved? Could any of those relationships make the lawyer reluctant to aggressively challenge somebody when your defense requires it? You have every right to ask, because in a serious military case, your lawyer’s loyalty needs to be to you.

One advantage of bringing in outside civilian military defense counsel is independence. We’re not trying to protect a local professional relationship. We’re not worried about whether we’re going to see the prosecutor socially next weekend. We’re not trying to preserve a friendship with an investigator. We come in for one reason: to defend our client. That doesn’t mean being reckless or unethical. It means if an investigator needs to be aggressively challenged, we challenge the investigator. If the prosecution made serious mistakes, we expose them. If a command investigation was poorly conducted, we say so. If a witness is lying, exaggerating, biased, or unreliable, we attack that credibility within the law and the rules of evidence. If the government’s theory doesn’t make sense, we take it apart. We don’t have to worry about preserving local relationships after the case is finished. That’s a significant advantage of outside counsel.

That does not mean every lawyer living overseas is a bad lawyer. There are excellent lawyers overseas and excellent former JAGs overseas. The point is simply that local is not a qualification by itself. You still need to ask: How many serious courts-martial has this lawyer actually tried? How many Article 120 cases? How many contested trials? When was the last one? How much of the lawyer’s practice is actually military criminal defense? Does the lawyer regularly handle serious cases, or occasionally take one because he or she happens to live near the installation? What experience does the lawyer have cross-examining sexual assault allegations? What about digital evidence, forensic evidence, CID, NCIS, OSI, or CGIS investigations, experts, military panels, sentencing, administrative boards? Those things matter far more than whether the lawyer can drive to the courthouse in 15 minutes.

And distance isn’t the obstacle it once was. Modern military justice is already highly mobile. Military judges often appear remotely. Special trial counsel may work from another installation. Detailed military defense counsel rotate between assignments. Witnesses PCS. Experts are located around the world. Teams hearings have become common. Article 32 preliminary hearings can often be handled remotely when permitted. Many motions hearings and Article 39(a) sessions can also be conducted remotely. Client meetings, witness interviews, discovery review, motions, expert consultation, and strategy sessions can routinely be handled through Teams, telephone, secure communications, and email.

So the fact that your civilian lawyer is stateside doesn’t mean that lawyer is disconnected from the case. An experienced military defense lawyer can prepare the case remotely and then travel when physical presence matters most: final trial preparation and the trial itself. That’s generally how we approach overseas cases. We try to minimize unnecessary travel. We don’t believe in flying halfway around the world for a short hearing simply so we can say we were physically there. If an Article 32 hearing can appropriately be handled remotely, we may appear remotely. If a motions hearing can appropriately be handled through Teams, we may appear through Teams. Military judges and other counsel frequently do the same thing. That saves our clients unnecessary travel expenses and lets us spend our time actually working on the case. Then, when trial approaches, we come to the installation, complete the necessary final preparation, meet face to face, prepare witnesses, coordinate with military co-counsel, and try the case. That’s where we want to spend the client’s travel money.

So if you’re overseas and trying to decide whom to hire, don’t reduce one of the most important decisions of your life to who happens to have an office closest to the gate. Look at what’s at stake. If you’re facing an Article 120 allegation, a serious court-martial, felony-level charges, significant confinement, sex offender registration, loss of retirement, or destruction of a military career, widen your search. Look for the lawyer you believe gives you the best chance. Ask about trial experience. Ask about experience with your specific type of case. Ask about overseas experience. Ask about potential conflicts and relationships with the local military community. Ask who will actually try your case. Ask how much work will be done remotely. Ask when the lawyer intends to travel. Ask how travel expenses are handled. Then decide who you want standing next to you when the government is asking a military judge or panel to take away your freedom or your career.

At Gonzalez & Waddington, we deliberately operate as outside counsel. We represent service members around the world. We prepare remotely when that makes sense. We appear remotely for appropriate preliminary hearings when permitted. And when the case reaches trial, we travel. We’re not tied to the local command. We’re not part of the local prosecution community. We’re not dependent on maintaining relationships with the people investigating or prosecuting our clients. Our job is to defend the person who hired us.

So, stateside lawyer or local lawyer? Don’t make that decision based on a map. For a serious UCMJ case, hire the lawyer you believe is best qualified to defend you, wherever that lawyer happens to live. Don’t sacrifice experience, independence, or trial ability just to save money on an airline ticket. The government isn’t choosing its prosecutors based on who’s closest to you. You shouldn’t choose your defense lawyer that way either. I’m Alexandra González-Waddington with Gonzalez & Waddington. We defend service members facing courts-martial, investigations, boards of inquiry, administrative separation proceedings, and other serious military actions throughout the United States and around the world. You can learn more at ucmjdefense.com or call 1-800-921-8607 for a confidential consultation.