GOMOR Rebuttal Lawyer | Army Reprimand Defense

Gonzalez & Waddington is a civilian military defense firm, founded by Michael Waddington and Alexandra Gonzalez-Waddington, that has defended service members at courts-martial and in UCMJ matters worldwide for more than two decades.

Reviewed by Michael Waddington, Gonzalez & Waddington. Last reviewed: November 1, 2026.

A GOMOR is fought in the rebuttal, and the rebuttal window is short — typically about a week. The document itself is administrative, but the filing decision that follows it is not: a General Officer Memorandum of Reprimand filed in your Army Military Human Resource Record (AMHRR) follows you to every promotion, school, and retention board for the rest of your career, and it is the standard first domino before QMP, chapter, or officer elimination actions. The rebuttal is your one structured chance to shape that decision before it is made.

Gonzalez & Waddington, led by former Army JAG Michael Waddington, writes GOMOR and letter of reprimand rebuttals for Soldiers and officers worldwide, including DUI, adultery and toxic leadership reprimands. The most useful time to call is the day you receive the reprimand: 1-800-921-8607 or text 954-799-4019.

What it is	A formal written reprimand under Army Regulation 600-37, usually issued by a general officer, for conduct the command considers seriously unfavorable — commonly after a founded investigation, a DUI, a fraternization or misconduct allegation, or a substantiated command inquiry.
The decision that matters	Where it gets filed. A local file entry is temporary and purges when you leave the command or after a set period. An AMHRR (permanent) filing is visible to every board that ever considers your record.
Your response window	Set by the referral memo — typically at least seven calendar days on active duty, longer for reserve-component soldiers not on active duty. Extensions can be requested for good cause.
The standard	This is not a trial. There is no judge, no jury, and no reasonable-doubt standard — the imposing officer weighs your rebuttal and decides. Persuasion, evidence, and credibility are the whole game.
Free counsel	Army Trial Defense Service (TDS) can advise on GOMOR rebuttals and often assists with them; retained civilian counsel adds dedicated time, investigation, and drafting for a document this consequential.
What can follow	A flag on favorable actions, clearance review, promotion removal, QMP review for NCOs, show-cause/elimination for officers, or chapter separation — frequently built on the filed GOMOR itself.

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What a GOMOR is and why it matters

A General Officer Memorandum of Reprimand is the Army’s formal written censure for conduct a senior commander considers seriously unfavorable. It is governed by Army Regulation 600-37, Unfavorable Information, and it usually arrives after something else — a law-enforcement report, a completed command investigation, a DUI blotter entry, a substantiated equal-opportunity or fraternization inquiry. The memo itself is often two or three paragraphs. Its consequences are not.

The reason experienced soldiers treat a GOMOR as a career event rather than a paperwork event is what it feeds. A reprimand filed permanently becomes the anchor document for nearly every adverse action the Army can take next: it is quoted in chapter separation packets, cited in officer show-cause initiations, weighed by QMP screens for senior NCOs, and read by every promotion and selection board that ever opens the record. Commands also routinely pair the GOMOR with a flag — a suspension of favorable personnel actions — which halts promotions, awards, and reassignment while the action runs.

None of that is decided when the GOMOR is signed. It is decided when the GOMOR is filed — and the rebuttal exists to influence exactly that decision.

**Video:** Should I Hire a Civilian Military Defense Lawyer for a GOMOR Rebuttal? (10:48) — watch on YouTube

Local file vs. AMHRR: the decision the rebuttal exists to influence

After you submit your rebuttal, the imposing officer decides where the reprimand goes. There are effectively two destinations, and the difference between them is the difference between a bad month and a changed career.

The local file

A locally filed GOMOR stays at the unit. It is temporary — it purges when you leave the command or after a set period — and it is not visible to Department of the Army boards. Commanders use local filing when they want the point made without ending a soldier’s prospects. For most recipients, a local filing is the realistic best outcome, and a rebuttal that gives the general officer a principled reason to choose it is doing its job.

The AMHRR (permanent) filing

A GOMOR directed to the Army Military Human Resource Record is permanent. Every promotion board, every school and command selection board, every QMP screen, and every separation authority that ever looks at your record will see it — with your rebuttal filed alongside it, which is why the rebuttal must read well not just to the imposing officer this month but to a board president years from now. A permanently filed GOMOR does not automatically end a career, but it re-prices every competitive event that remains in it.

The imposing officer’s filing decision is discretionary and is made after considering your rebuttal, your record, and the recommendations of the chain of command. That is the audience. Everything in the rebuttal should be built for it.

How long you have to respond

Your referral memorandum states the suspense. For soldiers on active duty it is typically at least seven calendar days; reserve-component soldiers not on active duty are generally given longer. The number on your own paperwork controls — read it the day the packet arrives.

Two practical points about the clock. First, extensions can be requested for good cause, and gathering evidence is good cause — a short, professional extension request to obtain records or statements is routine and rarely held against a soldier. Second, the window is short by design, and the single most common self-inflicted wound is spending most of it deciding whether to respond at all. Submitting nothing waives your only structured input into the filing decision; the file then contains the allegation, and only the allegation.

Should I hire a lawyer to write my GOMOR rebuttal?

Start with the free option either way: Army Trial Defense Service advises soldiers on GOMOR rebuttals, the consultations are confidential, and TDS counsel know the local command climate. For a straightforward reprimand with modest stakes, TDS help plus a disciplined draft may genuinely be enough.

The case for retained civilian counsel scales with what the filing decision controls. When the GOMOR sits near a promotion sequence, a retirement window, a security clearance, or a likely follow-on action — chapter, QMP, show-cause — the rebuttal is functionally the opening brief of a career-defense case, and it deserves dedicated hours: interviewing witnesses, pulling the underlying investigation apart, building the enclosure packet, and drafting to the specific general officer who will read it. Civilian counsel also stays with the case across what follows — the same lawyer who wrote the rebuttal argues the DASEB petition, the board, or the elimination response, and continuity is leverage. Retaining civilian counsel does not cost you TDS support, and it is your right at your own expense.

One more reason to involve counsel early: if the conduct behind the GOMOR is still under investigation, anything you write in the rebuttal is a statement. Article 31 protects you against compelled self-incrimination, but it does not protect you from your own enclosures. A lawyer decides what the rebuttal can safely say while criminal exposure is open — that judgment alone can be worth the fee.

What a strong GOMOR rebuttal contains

A GOMOR rebuttal is a persuasion document with one reader and one decision. The strong ones share an architecture.

A chosen theory: denial or extenuation, not both

The first decision is the document’s spine. If the evidence supports factual innocence — mistaken identity, a collapsed accusation, an investigation that ignored exculpatory facts — the rebuttal denies, precisely and with proof. If the conduct happened, the rebuttal owns it and argues extenuation, mitigation, and the filing decision. What fails is the hybrid: a paragraph of denial followed by a paragraph of apology reads as neither, and boards quote it later. Choose.

Evidence, not adjectives

The rebuttal’s enclosures usually matter more than its prose: the NCOER and OER record, awards, deployment history, the pages of the investigation that cut your way, sworn statements from witnesses the investigator never interviewed, medical or financial records that explain what the allegation misread. A general officer has read a thousand paragraphs of “I am a dedicated professional”; a documented contradiction in the case file is rarer and heavier.

Character letters that actually work

Effective letters come from people who know the writer’s duty performance firsthand — raters, senior raters, command teams, peers from named deployments — and they speak to specifics: what the soldier did, under what conditions, with what result. Three detailed letters from credible signatures outweigh fifteen generic ones. Counsel’s job is often editorial: telling a well-meaning colonel what his letter needs to say to move a filing decision.

What never goes in

No attacks on the imposing officer. No speculation about other soldiers’ punishments. No admissions beyond what the chosen theory requires while any investigation remains open. And nothing that is not literally true — a rebuttal caught in an exaggeration loses the only currency it has.

GOMORs with high stakes: 18 years in, promotion windows, and officers

Senior soldiers near retirement

For a soldier at 16, 18, or 19 years, a permanently filed GOMOR is not one bad document — it is the predicate for QMP review or a chapter action that can reach the retirement itself. The rebuttal in that posture is defending a pension measured in hundreds of thousands of dollars over a lifetime, and it should be resourced like it.

Officers and the show-cause risk

For officers, a filed GOMOR is the classic trigger for elimination proceedings under AR 600-8-24 and 10 U.S.C. § 1181 — a show-cause board where the government’s exhibit one is the reprimand and the officer’s rebuttal is read alongside it. Writing the rebuttal with that future board in mind, not just this month’s filing decision, is exactly the kind of two-moves-ahead judgment counsel exists to supply.

Flags, clearances, and the quiet costs

Even before filing, the accompanying flag freezes favorable actions, and the underlying allegation can prompt a security-clearance review with its own reporting obligations. A rebuttal that resolves the matter at local filing shortens all of it.

After the filing decision: DASEB and the long game

If the GOMOR is filed permanently, the fight changes venue rather than ending. The Department of the Army Suitability Evaluation Board (DASEB) can transfer a GOMOR to the restricted portion of the record or remove it entirely, on a showing that the reprimand is untrue or unjust, or that it has served its intended purpose — typically demonstrated with time, sustained exceptional performance, and evidence the underlying issue is resolved.

Two things make DASEB petitions succeed more often. The first is a contemporaneous record: a rebuttal that documented the weaknesses of the allegation at the time reads very differently from a petition raising them for the first time years later. The second is disciplined timing and packaging — petitioning too early, or with a thin packet, spends the board’s first impression cheaply. This is the long game the original rebuttal should be written to serve.

Attacking the Evidence Behind the GOMOR

Most GOMORs rest on an underlying investigative product — a 15-6, a police report, a CID or MPI report, a commander’s inquiry — and that product is where the reprimand is usually most vulnerable. We obtain and dissect every enclosure. The recurring defects are remarkably consistent: witnesses identified in statements but never interviewed; exculpatory documents referenced but never collected; timelines that collapse when checked against duty logs, gate records, or phone data; accusers with documented motives to fabricate whose credibility was never tested; investigating officers who exceeded the scope of their appointing memorandum; and findings that simply restate the allegation rather than weigh evidence against it.

Each defect becomes a numbered argument with an exhibit. The difference between ‘the investigation was unfair’ and ‘Finding 2 rests entirely on SPC A’s statement, and the attached CQ log at Exhibit C establishes SPC A was not present’ is the difference between a rebuttal that gets skimmed and a rebuttal that gets a reprimand withdrawn. Where the underlying investigation is still open to challenge, we attack it directly through an AR 15-6 rebuttal as well, because disapproved findings take the GOMOR’s foundation with them.

Standard of proof arguments matter too, and they are underused. A preponderance standard is low, but it is a standard: it requires evidence making the allegation more likely true than not, not merely an allegation someone wrote down. Rebuttals that hold the packet to that standard — methodically, exhibit by exhibit — force the legal advisor reviewing the file to confront whether the record actually supports what the reprimand asserts.

Character Letters That Move a General Officer

Character letters are the most misused component of the average rebuttal. Soldiers collect ten interchangeable letters — ‘SGT Smith is a consummate professional’ — from whoever answers the text, and the stack lands with no weight at all. Letters work when they are engineered: the right authors, addressing the right subject, in the right register.

The right authors are people whose judgment a general credits: current and former commanders and command sergeants major who know the Soldier’s duty performance firsthand, senior raters, and — in the strongest packages — leaders who know about the allegation and support the Soldier anyway. A letter that says ‘I am aware of the pending reprimand and I would still take this NCO to combat tomorrow’ is worth twenty that studiously avoid the subject. The right subject is the specific concern the GOMOR raises: if the allegation is a lapse in judgment, the letters address judgment; if integrity, integrity; if leadership, leadership. And the right register is concrete: incidents, decisions, and observed behavior, not adjectives.

We provide every letter-writer with guidance on what the letter needs to accomplish — never a script, which experienced reviewers detect instantly, but a clear brief on the questions the general will be asking when the packet is opened.

The Ten Most Damaging Mistakes Soldiers Make in the Rebuttal Window

After reviewing rebuttals that failed before we were hired for the appeal, the same errors appear again and again. One: submitting a bare apology in a disputed-facts case, converting a winnable fight into a signed confession. Two: missing or nearly missing the deadline and submitting something rushed instead of requesting an extension in writing on day one. Three: attacking the general, the command, or the accuser in personal terms — outrage reads as deflection and poisons an otherwise strong packet. Four: disputing everything, including the indisputable, which tells the reviewer none of it can be trusted. Five: volunteering information — uncharged conduct, prior incidents, speculative motives — that was not in the packet before and is now.

Six: submitting the Soldier’s own statement without legal review, then living with its phrasing at every board for a decade. Seven: generic character letters, addressed above. Eight: ignoring the filing question entirely and arguing only guilt or innocence, leaving the general with no built path to local filing. Nine: failing to obtain the complete evidence packet before responding — you cannot rebut enclosures you have never read. Ten: assuming the rebuttal does not matter because ‘the general already decided.’ Filing determinations change after strong rebuttals routinely; they almost never change after weak ones. The rebuttal is the one variable still in your control.

Your Timeline: What to Do in the Next 72 Hours

If you have just been served, the sequence is straightforward. Day one: acknowledge receipt, request an extension in writing through counsel, and say nothing substantive to anyone in your chain of command about the underlying facts — informal conversations become sworn statements with alarming regularity. Also on day one: preserve everything. Texts, emails, photos, financial records, duty logs you can lawfully access — the evidence that wins rebuttals has a way of disappearing from reach once a Soldier PCSs, clears, or loses system access.

Within the first 72 hours: get the complete packet to counsel, including every enclosure and the acknowledgment memo with its stated suspense; identify every witness who can speak to the actual facts; and make the strategic decision — dispute, mitigate, or the tiered combination of both — that will govern every document in the package. The remaining days are drafting, evidence assembly, declaration gathering, and letter management. A genuinely strong rebuttal package is a one-to-two-week build compressed into whatever window exists, which is why the extension request and the early start are not optional steps. They are the whole strategy.

Talking to Gonzalez & Waddington

Gonzalez & Waddington is a civilian military defense firm representing service members in courts-martial, administrative separation boards, and military investigations.

If a GOMOR referral is sitting in front of you, the suspense is already running. Call 1-800-921-8607, text 954-799-4019, or use the contact form on this site for a confidential consultation: what the evidence supports, whether the theory should be denial or extenuation, what belongs in the enclosure packet — and what the realistic path is to a local filing or, later, a DASEB removal.

Results in GOMOR and reprimand cases

Gonzalez & Waddington has written hundreds of GOMOR and letter of reprimand rebuttals. Examples of past results include:

A GOMOR rescinded for a Ranger School student accused of cheating on the land navigation course.
GOMORs for alleged sexual harassment rescinded at several Army installations.
Letters of reprimand reconsidered and withdrawn in the Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps and Coast Guard.
Successful rebuttals in cases involving drunk and disorderly conduct, assault, adultery, sexual harassment, cheating on exams, disrespect and insubordination.

Even when a reprimand stays in place, we document the response so it can be used as evidence at any later board.

Past results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Every case depends on its own facts.

Questions to ask before you hire a GOMOR rebuttal lawyer

You usually have about seven calendar days to submit a rebuttal, so you need answers fast. Ask any lawyer you are considering these questions before you sign anything:

Who will personally write my rebuttal, and who will sign it?
How many GOMOR and letter of reprimand rebuttals have you written for soldiers at my rank?
Have you served as a military prosecutor or defense counsel yourself?
Will you read the full investigation behind the reprimand, including any AR 15-6 or CID file, before we decide on a strategy?
Should we ask the command for more time, and how will you request the extension?
Should my rebuttal deny the conduct, explain it, or accept responsibility, and why?
Could anything I write be used against me later at a board or a court-martial?
Who should write my character letters, and what should they cover?
What happens if the general officer files the reprimand in my AMHRR anyway?
Will you also help with a later separation board, show-cause board or DASEB appeal if one follows?
What is the fee, what does it include, and is it a flat fee?
How quickly will you answer my calls and texts during the rebuttal window?

Gonzalez & Waddington answers these questions in a free consultation. Call 1-800-921-8607 or text 954-799-4019.

Should you admit fault in a GOMOR rebuttal?

Sometimes, but only after a lawyer has read the evidence. Accepting responsibility can persuade a general officer to file the reprimand locally. An admission can also be used against you later, at a separation board, a show-cause board or a court-martial. You have the right not to make a statement about an offense you are suspected of (Article 31, UCMJ, 10 U.S.C. § 831), and a written rebuttal is a statement.

A rebuttal can accept responsibility for judgment and leadership without conceding every element of a crime. Where the facts are disputed, the rebuttal should challenge the evidence instead. Decide which approach fits your case before you write a word.

What a GOMOR rebuttal from our firm includes, and what it costs

GOMOR rebuttal representation at our firm generally starts at about $7,500, a flat fee quoted in writing before you sign. Here is what that fee covers and why we build each rebuttal packet this way. Trial Defense Service can also help you at no cost.

Who does the work

Michael Waddington and Alexandra González-Waddington handle every GOMOR rebuttal personally. We do not hand it to an intern or an assistant, and we do not pass it to an outside lawyer and split the fee. We have been married since 1998, have practiced law together since 2006, and work our cases together as a team. A typical rebuttal takes us 10 to 20 hours or more of review, research and writing.

What goes into the packet

A review of the investigation and the evidence behind the reprimand, whether it came from an AR 15-6 investigation, CID or a command inquiry.
Your rebuttal statement, written with you. It tells your side without creating new problems, because anything you write can be used against you later, including at a board or a court-martial (Article 31, UCMJ, 10 U.S.C. § 831).
A legal memorandum to the general officer and the Staff Judge Advocate. It applies the standards in AR 600-37, points out weaknesses in the evidence where they exist, presents your service record, and argues for the outcome you need, such as withdrawal or local filing. These are arguments that should come from a lawyer, not from you.
Exhibits. Your evaluations, awards and records, gathered, organized and tabbed.
Character letters. We help you choose who writes them and what each one should cover.
Witnesses the investigators missed. Where it helps your case, we contact people who can give statements.

Not every case calls for every piece, and we do not challenge the investigation in every case. In some cases the finished packet runs 10 to 60 pages.

Why the packet matters beyond the GOMOR

If the general officer files the reprimand in your Army Military Human Resource Record, your rebuttal is filed with it (AR 600-37). That record is seen by promotion, school and retention boards, and a GOMOR can start an elimination or separation action (officers: AR 600-8-24, chapter 4; enlisted: AR 635-200). What you submit now becomes part of the record a board will read later. That is why we treat the rebuttal as the first step in defending your career, not a form to fill out. For a soldier near retirement or a promotion window, the stakes are usually far higher than the fee.

A civilian lawyer may add less when the conduct is minor, the command has already signaled local filing, and your Trial Defense Service counsel has time to work the case. If that is true of your case, we will tell you in the consultation.

Fees depend on the facts of each case. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.

Moving a filed GOMOR to the restricted folder

If a GOMOR is filed in your AMHRR, you can later ask the Department of the Army Suitability Evaluation Board (DASEB) to transfer it to the restricted folder, out of the performance folder that promotion boards normally review. Under AR 600-37, chapter 7, you generally must:

hold the grade of E-6 or above (the DASEB considers requests from lower grades only by exception);
have received at least one evaluation report, other than an academic report, since the reprimand was imposed; and
show with substantial evidence that the reprimand has served its intended purpose, for example statements from commanders, later evaluations and proof of rehabilitation.

Removing a GOMOR from your record entirely is harder. You must show by clear and convincing evidence that it is untrue or unjust, in whole or in part (AR 600-37, para. 7-2). See our GOMOR removal and DASEB appeal guide.

GOMOR vs. Article 15 vs. court-martial: how they compare

A GOMOR, an Article 15 and a court-martial are three different actions. Each has its own rules, its own rights and its own way to fight back. This table shows the main differences for an Army soldier.

	GOMOR (Army reprimand)	Article 15 (nonjudicial punishment)	Court-martial
What it is	An administrative written reprimand, usually from a general officer (AR 600-37)	Punishment imposed by your commander without a trial (Article 15, UCMJ, 10 U.S.C. § 815)	A criminal trial under the UCMJ: summary, special or general (Article 16, 10 U.S.C. § 816)
Can you turn it down?	No. You can submit a rebuttal before the general officer decides where to file it (AR 600-37).	Yes. You can demand trial by court-martial instead, unless you are attached to or embarked in a vessel (§ 815(a)).	No. You can plead not guilty and contest the charges at trial.
Possible punishment	None by itself. The harm comes from where it is filed and who sees it.	Limited by statute. For enlisted members, a field-grade Article 15 can include reduction in grade (a member above E-4 can be reduced no more than two grades), forfeiture of half a month’s pay for two months, 45 days of extra duty and 60 days of restriction (§ 815(b)).	Depending on the type of court and the offense, can include confinement and a punitive discharge (R.C.M. 1003).
Where it goes in your record	Filed locally or in your Army Military Human Resource Record (AMHRR), where promotion, school and retention boards see it (AR 600-37).	A record of the proceedings, filed according to your service’s rules.	A record of trial and any conviction.
How to challenge it afterward	Appeal to the Department of the Army Suitability Evaluation Board (DASEB) to remove it or move it to the restricted folder (AR 600-37, chapter 7).	Appeal to the next superior authority if the punishment is unjust or disproportionate (§ 815(e)).	Post-trial review and, in qualifying cases, appeal to the service Court of Criminal Appeals (Article 66, 10 U.S.C. § 866).
Your right to a lawyer	You can consult free military defense counsel or hire a civilian lawyer.	You can consult a lawyer before deciding whether to accept it or demand trial (AR 27-10).	Free detailed military defense counsel, plus the right to civilian counsel you hire (Article 38(b), 10 U.S.C. § 838).
Can it lead to something worse?	Yes. A filed GOMOR can support a separation or elimination action (AR 635-200; officers, AR 600-8-24).	Yes. Accepting an Article 15 does not bar a later court-martial for a serious offense from the same conduct (§ 815(f)), and it can support separation.	A conviction can bring confinement, a punitive discharge and lasting civilian consequences.

Gonzalez & Waddington defends soldiers in all three. Call 1-800-921-8607 or text 954-799-4019 for a free consultation.

Frequently asked questions

Should I hire a civilian lawyer to respond to a GOMOR?

If the GOMOR could be filed in your permanent Army record, it is worth considering. The filing decision often decides whether your career survives: a locally filed GOMOR is typically removed later, while a permanently filed one can follow you to promotion boards and separation actions. Trial Defense Service can help for free, and a civilian lawyer adds more time to gather evidence and character statements and to write a rebuttal aimed at withdrawal or local filing. Deadlines are short, so act as soon as you receive it.

Who can write my GOMOR rebuttal?

You can write it yourself, get help from Army Trial Defense Service, or retain civilian counsel to draft it with you. The rebuttal goes in under your name either way — what counsel adds is the theory, the evidence packet, and the judgment about what helps and what quietly makes things worse.

How long do I have to respond to a GOMOR?

The referral memo states your suspense. For soldiers on active duty it is typically at least seven calendar days, and longer for reserve-component soldiers not on active duty; extensions can be requested for good cause, and asking for one to gather evidence is routine, not weakness.

Can a GOMOR be removed from my record after it is filed?

Sometimes. The Department of the Army Suitability Evaluation Board (DASEB) can transfer or remove a GOMOR from the AMHRR on a showing that it is untrue, unjust, or has served its intended purpose. Those petitions are far stronger when the original rebuttal built a documented record — which is one more reason the rebuttal matters even when filing looks likely.

Will a GOMOR end my career?

Not automatically — the filing decision is most of the answer. A locally filed GOMOR is temporary and survivable. A GOMOR filed in your AMHRR is visible to promotion, school, and command boards for the rest of your career, can trigger QMP review for NCOs or show-cause for officers, and is genuinely dangerous near a promotion or retirement window.

Should I deny the allegation or accept responsibility in my rebuttal?

That is the single most important strategic choice in the document, and it depends on the evidence. Denial with proof reads as vindication; denial without proof reads as denial. Acceptance with context can move a filing decision — but a coerced-sounding apology to an allegation you dispute can be quoted against you in every proceeding that follows. Decide the theory before writing a word.

How much does it cost to have a lawyer write a GOMOR rebuttal?

Rebuttal-stage representation is usually a flat, defined-scope fee — modest next to what is at stake when the filing decision controls a retirement or a promotion sequence. Most investigation-, rebuttal-, and board-stage matters are handled on a flat, defined-scope fee quoted at the consultation and put in writing before you sign; the exact figure depends on the forum, the posture of the case, and any travel involved. Trial-stage representation is scoped the same way, stage by stage. At our firm, GOMOR rebuttal representation generally starts at about $7,500, and Trial Defense Service can also help at no cost. See our fee ranges.

Can a lawyer get my GOMOR filed locally instead of in my permanent file?

No lawyer can promise it, because the general officer decides. The rebuttal is where you ask for local filing and give the reasons that make it fair: your record, the context, what you have done since, and evidence the command did not have. See Can a lawyer get my GOMOR filed locally?

Can a GOMOR cost me my military retirement?

A GOMOR does not take away retirement by itself. A GOMOR filed in your permanent record can lead to separation proceedings, such as an officer show-cause board or an enlisted separation, and for officers it can affect the grade you retire in. That is why the filing decision matters so much late in a career. See Can a GOMOR cost me my military retirement?

What should I send a lawyer first after receiving a GOMOR?

Send the reprimand, everything attached to it (such as the investigation or police report it relies on), the date your response is due, your ERB or ORB, and your recent evaluations. Do not submit anything to your command before you talk to a lawyer, and do not contact witnesses about the allegation.

How do I respond to a GOMOR for a DUI?

Army rules generally call for a general officer reprimand after a DUI, so the rebuttal usually focuses on the facts of the stop and any test, treatment or substance abuse program steps you have taken, your record, and why local filing is fair. See What happens to your Army career after a GOMOR for a DUI?