Civilian Military Defense Lawyer for an NCIS Investigation

He came home early. He wouldn’t look at you. And then he said the sentence that changed everything. I can’t talk about it. Or the lawyers told me not to talk about it.

Maybe he told you CID pulled him out of formation. Maybe NCIS showed up at the hangar or OSI called him and took his phone. Or maybe you found out from another spouse, someone else in the unit before you found out from him. And now you’re doing what you’ve always done when there’s a problem in the family, you’re trying to fix it. So you called the unit.

They wouldn’t tell you anything. You asked the first sergeant, the commander, nothing. You’ve been up since 2:00 in the morning searching things like my husband’s under investigation and military court-martial what happens. And everything you find is either written by a robot or trying to scare you. Now I’m going to tell you what’s actually happening.

My name is Michael Waddington. I’m a criminal defense lawyer, been practicing law for 25 years. My wife and law partner, Alexandra González-Waddington and I, have spent more than 20 years defending service members all over the world in courts-martial, investigations, separation boards, boards of inquiry in the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard. And here’s something most people don’t know about this work. In a huge number of our cases, the first phone call does not come from the service member.

It comes from the spouse. So this episode is for you, spouses. If your spouse is under investigation in the military, please listen up. I’m going to walk you through what’s actually happening to your husband or your wife if they’re under investigation. I’ll talk about why nobody will talk to you and what you can actually do to help.

And finally, I’m going to talk about the three mistakes that I’ve watched loving, intelligent spouses make that have made everything worse. Here’s a quick note before we start. This is general information. This is not legal advice for your specific case. Every case is different.

You want to speak to us, give us a call, email us, and set up a free confidential consultation. So, let’s start with the thing that’s been driving you crazy. The silence. You’ve been a military spouse for years. You know the FRG leader.

You actually might be the FRG leader or the former FRG leader. You know the commander’s wife. She might even be your friend. You’ve hosted these people at your home, at your dinner tables, at your barbecues. And now, suddenly, it’s like your family has a contagious disease.

Nobody calls. Nobody will answer a direct question. You feel like they’re talking about you behind your back and avoiding you. Because they are. Here’s what you need to understand.

The silence, it’s not personal. And it’s not necessarily a bad sign. It’s structural. I know that’s not going to make you feel better, but you have to hear me out. First of all, your husband is what investigators call the subject of the investigation.

And under military law, the government is not required to notify the subject that he’s under investigation. And they’re under no obligation to notify you, the spouse. A lot of service members find out that they’re under investigation by accident because a buddy got interviewed and gave them a heads-up that he wasn’t supposed to give. And once law enforcement opens a case, commanders are instructed not to discuss it. Often, they’ll give a direct order to people not to discuss it.

And in some situations, they’ll be forced to sign a non-disclosure agreement stating that they cannot discuss the investigation at all. That includes with you and your husband or anyone else. Sometimes, this is to protect the investigation. A lot of times, it’s to protect themselves and to protect the command. Anything a commander says to you can become a problem later.

That’s why a lot of times they’re told to go radio silent. So, they say nothing. Third, and this part stings, some of the silence is distancing. The moment an allegation lands, your husband becomes radioactive at the unit. Even if they’re the best service member of the year, they become toxic.

People who’ve known him for a decade will act like they never met him. I’ve watched it happen to command sergeant majors with 20 years of perfect service, with colonels. It happens up and down the ranks. It’s ugly, it’s unfair, and it’s not how you should treat other people, but it’s completely predictable. So, here’s the reframe I want to make for you.

Stop treating the command as your source of information. They are not your friends. They are part of the bureaucracy, part of the system that is investigating your husband, that could be prosecuting your husband. So, get that through your mind. They’re not your friend.

Stop going there for information. Every hour you spend trying to pry answers out of the first sergeant is an hour wasted. They could be collecting information to later use against you or your spouse. Beware. What you’re doing, and what you’re saying, and the information you’re passing to people you think you can trust, it could create problems down the line.

So, for example, if the case escalates and someone like me, a military defense lawyer, has to get involved, I don’t like seeing a bunch of statements, admissions, and things like that from spouses, or searches. I’ve seen spouses agree to search, to hand over their phones, to give up information. Later, it becomes used against their husband. So, the only information that you’re going to be getting going forward is going to be coming from several places. One, your spouse.

Two, from the paperwork when it arrives, the charge sheet, the investigation, whatever paperwork there is. And three, from a military defense lawyer. Now, the military defense lawyer is often not kept in the loop either because we’re trying to represent your spouse. We’re trying to help them. We’re not part of the system.

So, we can get as much information as we can and pass it back on to the person who’s under investigation. So, those are the three sources. That’s it. One more thing about the silence because I know where your head goes at 3:00 in the morning when you’re sitting there in bed wondering what’s going to happen to your family. Silence does not mean he’s about to be arrested.

Silence is the default setting of a military investigation. These things move very slowly. Which brings me to the next question every spouse asks when they get us on the line. What is going to happen to him? Or what is going to happen to my husband?

Just tell me. I want you to be honest. We do have a duty to be honest with our clients. But I want to just be very clear with you. A lot of times we don’t know.

We cannot speculate. So, some of the words you might hear thrown around are he’s flagged, he’s titled, charges are preferred. It’s been deferred by the OSTC, or he’s looking at a court-martial. So, think of it like this. Stage one, the investigation.

Someone made an allegation. A co-worker, a stranger, an ex. Sometimes it’s an anonymous complaint. Depending on how serious it is, it goes to one of two places. Serious criminal allegations go to a criminal investigation.

That’s CID for the Army and CIS for the Navy and Marine Corps, OSI for Air Force and Space Force, and CGIS if you’re in the Coast Guard. That’s felony level cases like rape, sexual assault, murder. That will be done by one of those agencies. Less serious matters stay inside the unit as a command investigation. In the Army you’ll hear words like 15-6 or AR 15-6.

A command investigator is appointed. They’ll interview people. They’ll pull records. They’ll collect phones. They sometimes look at messages.

It won’t be a criminal investigator, professional investigator doing the investigation. It will often be someone with no background in investigations digging in to your spouse. Your husband may be interviewed. He may not be interviewed. This stage can take months, not days.

Sometimes 6 months to a year. That’s not abnormal. I’ve seen them go up to 18 months to 2 years for an investigation, depending on how complicated it is, depending on the case load of the investigators, and how motivated they are to get the investigation completed. So, 6 months is a minimum. Command investigations generally take anywhere from a couple weeks to a couple of months.

Now, the second stage, we’ll call it the freeze. While that’s happening, the investigation, the military hits pause on your husband’s career. In the Army, it’s called being flagged. In the Navy and Marine Corps, they’ll call it legal hold, for example. And what it means practically is that there’s no promotions, no awards, no PCS move.

You can’t get out. You can’t ETS. They won’t let you do favorable things, like go to school. If you were supposed to go to Airborne school, or go to some advanced schooling if you’re an officer, they will pause that in most cases, not always. If you had orders, if you already sold your house, if the moving company was scheduled, or if your stuff’s in transit, that can be put on hold.

Yes. Your stuff could have been shipped off to Germany. You could be en route. Your husband could be left behind at the unit while he’s under investigation. And again, and that could go on for years.

So, if you’re overseas in Korea or Japan or Germany, they can extend him involuntarily. And I need you to hear that so you can plan. Your family’s timeline is now hostage to the case. And that could be quite frustrating. It could be hostage for up to a year to 2 years.

That’s just for the investigation phase. Now, I told you we have to be straight up. This is not legal advice, but this is something that you need to be aware of because we get calls all the time from spouses wanting to know what they can do to speed it up. Why is this taking so long? That’s often a month or two into the investigation.

They think it’s going to be wrapped up in a few months or a couple weeks and it’s all over. No, you need to prepare strategically for the long haul, for the long term because these things play out like a long-running chess game. There’s a lot of moves that you can make that could yes, end it more quickly, but it could be devastating and catastrophic for your husband, his career, and for your family. The third stage is the decision. When the investigation ends, somebody decides what to do with it.

It could be the office of the special trial counsel, the prosecution, or your command, or the general. It depends on the type of case, on the allegations. And this is the part that most spouses don’t know. There’s a whole menu of what can happen, and most of the menu is not a criminal trial. Yes, that is a possibility, a court-martial, but it can be many other things.

The case can be unfounded, meaning it dies quietly. It can become a reprimand, a piece of paper in the Army called a GOMOR, or a letter reprimand. Now, this may sound minor and can seem like a major win, and and it could be in some cases, but it can absolutely end a career. It can also become an NJP or an Article 15, which is punishment without a trial. It can become an administrative separation board.

That’s the military trying to fire your husband with some discharge, usually an other than honorable discharge. Again, it can be devastating for his career, for his future, and for your family. Or if the allegations are more serious, charges can get preferred. That basically means that the military formally charges your husband, and you’re headed toward a court-martial. A general court-martial is a felony-level federal trial.

It means he can go to jail for a long time and get a dismissal or a dishonorable discharge. Now, stage four is the fight. That’s the separation board or the trial or the court-martial. That’s a subject of other episodes. And if you’re at that stage where you’re at a actual court-martial where charges have been preferred, you need to get someone on board on your case as soon as possible, whether military lawyer or a civilian lawyer or both.

I recommend reaching out to a civilian defense lawyer at least through the free consultation, get an idea what it’s going to cost, and compare that to the legal advice and service that you’re getting from the free military lawyer. Here’s another thing you need to be aware of. If your husband was interviewed by CID, NCIS, OSI, or CGIS, you’ve probably heard the word titled. And that word haunts people for years. Being titled means the investigators listed him as the subject of the case in their database.

That means he went into a federal database. But here’s the problem with that. Titling is not a finding of guilt. It happens at the beginning on a very, very low standard of evidence, but that record can show up on a federal background check for the rest of his life. It’s very difficult to get that removed, even if the case is dropped, even if he’s found not guilty.

So, when your husband says, “I just got titled and flagged,” what he’s telling you is, “I’m in stage one and stage two. My career is frozen. I could be facing serious allegations or possibly a court-martial. The investigation is ongoing and it’s running, and we need to hunker down and strategize for our future.” However, nothing at that point has been decided.

For anyone who’s undergoing that, it’s very scary, especially if you have no control. And as a spouse, you often have no control at all over this other than being there to support your husband, keep the family together, and keep your husband and yourself and your family mentally and physically fit for the long term for the fight that’s ahead. So, what can you do and can’t you do as a spouse? And here’s what I tell all the spouses on almost every call when we speak with the spouse. You are potentially the most valuable member of the defense team because you can do things your husband can’t do right now.

He’s paralyzed. He’s under orders to not talk to anyone. There’s often a no contact order. He’s being watched by the command, sometimes watched by investigators. He’s literally under a microscope.

And half the time, emotionally, he shut down. Many men in this situation go into a cave, psychologically, and sometimes literally into their man cave and play video games, and sit around depressed. That’s very natural. You’ve probably seen it if it’s your spouse. However, you have to keep things together.

You have to keep him motivated, keep him on track because your family’s future depends on it. You can think, you can organize, and you can act. So, here’s often what you can do. I’ll give you four tasks that can be very helpful. Number one, help build the timeline.

Timelines are crucial. We need a notebook or a document on your personal computer, not his government laptop. He needs to write down everything he knows about the accuser, about the timeline, going back before the allegation, through it, and then afterwards. Timelines are crucial when mounting a defense. You have to look at when this allegedly happened, where were you as a family, what was going on in your life.

So, the timeline is very important. Number two, preserving everything, collecting social media. Don’t go out and delete all your social media. If there was an affair involved, I know it’s very hurtful. What you can do is, either way, keep your head straight and collect social media posts, preserve them, screenshot them.

Do not reach out and speak with any alleged victim. Do not do any investigations, but you can collect information that’s publicly available on the internet. Or whatever you know about the case and compile it and give it to the military defense lawyer. If you’re going to collect photos, if you’re going to collect information and evidence, make sure it’s authentic, it has dates, make sure that text messages has dates, and it’s a complete thread. If it’s financial, document everything.

If it’s travel records, take screenshots, make Xerox copies, and get that information to the defense lawyer who’s working on the case. Social media, especially helpful posts, tend to disappear over time. If it’s an alleged victim making a false allegation, for example, and they’re posting things online that could be helpful, you need to document that information as soon as possible. A third thing you can do is put together a list of witnesses. Who is there?

Who knows your husband? A list of character witnesses, a list of good soldier, good sailor, good airman, good marine witnesses. Who knows anything about the accused? A lot of times the wives dig up a lot of information on the alleged accuser, especially if it’s a false allegation made by someone that they had an affair with. They collect social media information that the government will never see.

What you can do is write down all the names, all this information, all this data, put it together, and get it to us. Do not call anyone, don’t interview them, just list them, and collect the data and screenshots. The interviewing is for lawyers and for investigators. If you do it yourself, you can accidentally turn yourself into a witness, or worse, you can hand the government an obstruction argument where they claim you’re obstructing justice. Last thing you can do, and that’s the hiring process.

In our practice, it’s very often the spouse or the parents who research the military defense lawyers. Many times they call us, they ask to sit in on consultations, although there’re rules with that, which we can discuss in the consultation, and they ask hard questions about money, and they sometimes, behind the scenes, make the decision without their husband. Many husbands don’t want to spend the family money to hire a military defense lawyer. It’s the spouses who go ahead and collect money from family, cash in investments, or put together money for the fees, especially if the husband did something wrong, like committed adultery, got involved with someone at work who later made a false allegation.

The husband often feels very guilty and will just throw up his hands or throw in the towel and doesn’t want to spend the family’s money to defend himself like he’s feeling guilty. Well, it’s the spouse often that comes in and says, “Hey, listen, we’re tied together at the hips. We have three kids together. I’ve been living this Army life supporting you for the past 20 years. I’m not going down without a fight.

I’m going to get the best military defense lawyer possible to defend you. So, you better man up and get yourself together. We’re fighting these allegations.” Those are often the spouses that we deal with. In a recent case I just did, we tried the case at Eglin Air Force Base, but it came from Hurlburt Field down in Florida.

The spouse was crucial. She gathered so many social media posts from the accuser. And she gathered a ton of information that this woman was posting from not just pictures, but things that she was writing online that could be very helpful to us. She became vital to our defense because she helped motivate her husband. She kept him in the fight physically and mentally, and she acted as a major support person in gathering devastating evidence that we used to win that case and get a full acquittal.

Especially the social media post and the text messages. Like she literally helped recover the messages from her husband’s phone and get them to us so that we could get them authenticated and cross-examine the alleged victim using these messages. So, she was very crucial to the case. She also showed up with her entire family, and she was there kind of like as a cheerleader and a motivator throughout the trial bringing in family members to be there for his support and also character witnesses. That’s just one example of many.

And another big factor, like I said, is money. A lot of families, the spouse, the wife controls the money, controls the finances. When it comes down to saving their husband, even if their husband screwed up, you’ll be surprised how many spouses basically will put the money together and select a lawyer and get that lawyer on board to defend their husband. What we don’t want you doing? Confronting anyone, investigating anyone, posting anything, posting bad things about people, calling people names, threatening people, calling the command, writing complaints, filing IG complaints, accusing the command of things.

That is not helpful to us. You should be working in conjunction with your husband in his defense team. You’re not going to go out on your own and start doing a bunch of wild things because you could end up making the situation worse. Now, here are three mistakes that make everything worse, so don’t do them. Number one, contacting the accuser or witnesses.

Now, I understand the impulse. Maybe you know her. Maybe she cheated with your husband. Maybe she’s a liar. Maybe she’s making the whole thing up.

Maybe this happened in your house or after a party you hosted. She can even be a former friend of yours. Every fiber in you wants to send a message. How could you do this? Tell the truth.

Stop lying. Do not send that message. Do not say those words. Do not have your sister send it. Don’t have another spouse send it.

Don’t casually bring it up at the commissary or at the FRG group. I’ll tell you why. The moment that message lands or those rumors start, the government stops talking about your husband’s case and starts talking about witness intimidation and obstruction of justice. He can actually be accused of conspiracy to obstruct justice because of what you did. Even if it was blown out of proportion, even if it wasn’t intentional.

Obstruction of justice is an additional separate crime. Carries up to 5 years. It’s a felony. It’s also something they can use against you if you testify in the trial. They can make you look like a criminal yourself.

I have personally been involved in defensible, winnable cases where we got buried because someone in the family decided to reach out to witness start threatening people, start doing things behind the scenes. So understand this, please. If there’s a military protective order in place, an MPO, your husband can be punished for contact that you initiate. Because they’ll argue that he did it through you. So don’t do it.

One text message from you can hand the prosecution a gift, a gift that they could never have gotten on their own. It also makes you and him look bad. Like you’re intimidating witnesses, like you’re threatening people. Here’s mistake number two. Posting on social media.

Yeah, I know you’re angry. You want to defend your family’s name, your reputation, your husband’s reputation. That Facebook status is already half written in your head. Before you believe the rumors, let me tell you what’s really going on or I got to tell you something about this alleged victim. She’s a blankety blanking lying blank.

Don’t post it. Delete the draft. Everything you post will be screenshotted within the hour. Spouse groups leak and talk and gossip. You know this.

It will end up in an investigator’s file. Your version of events, posted in anger, locks into a story before the defense team even knows what’s happening. If your account of the timeline shifts even slightly later or your memory shifts or you forget something they’ll always wave that post around as proof that your family lies, they intimidate, it’s just type of people you are. You and your husband are both guilty. Your character is bad.

So the bottom line is this, you gain nothing, you risk everything by posting things on social media. Total social media silence about the case should be the standard both of you and your family members starting today. Now mistake number three is this, letting your husband clear it up. This is a big one. Somewhere in the next few weeks your husband is going to want to just clear his name and fix everything.

Here’s the thing, he’s going to go in and talk to law enforcement. He did nothing wrong. He feels he’s innocent. He’s got to do something to clear his name. I have nothing to hide.

And often the spouse, and sometimes the husband thinks, if I get a lawyer, I look guilty. Well, if you don’t get a lawyer and you go in to talk, they already think you’re guilty. You’re just going to look even more guilty and look like you’re lying. So, listen to this. In 20 plus years of doing this, I can count on my fingers the cases where talking to an investigators without a lawyer helped the accused.

If you go in without a military defense lawyer, you are digging your own grave. The agents are not neutral. They’re trained interrogators. And some investigators act like you they’re your buddy. They’re your friend.

They’re going to clear things up and they can just understand how this woman made this false allegation against you or why your husband’s being wrongfully accused. That is an investigator’s trick. It’s called rapport building to make you think you can trust them and that they are your friend. Anyone who says that they just want your side, you got nothing to hide then I would talk without a military defense lawyer, is running a game. Innocent men talk themselves into charges every single day.

Not by confessing, but by filling gaps, by giving the investigators who already think you’re guilty information, thinking they’re being helpful. And every inconsistency becomes, oh, he lied to federal agents. And then you just bought yourself a false official statement charge, Article 107 of the UCMJ. That is a felony level lying charge, carries 5 years in prison. They love to throw false official statement charges on people’s charge sheets.

It’s kind of an easy conviction. So, you may win the other charges, but then they’ll get you on lying. It could be about something very minor, very petty. Never go into any interview with anyone who’s investigating you without a skilled, experienced military defense lawyer. And that idea of like, I’m going to look guilty if I don’t talk, that’s ridiculous.

To the command, you became guilty from the start. You’re the one under investigation. You’re the one who’s suspected the moment that investigation started. They’re not investigating him because they think he’s innocent. Nobody was ever acquitted because they were cooperative in the interrogation room.

As a matter of fact, they never play cooperative interrogations. It’s not even admissible cuz it’s considered hearsay. Getting a skilled military defense lawyer does not make anyone look guilty. It makes the command stand up, realize this guy’s taking it seriously, and it also protects your husband. So, when he has that moment of desperate confidence of I’m going to go in there and explain everything, your job is one sentence.

Well, not until we hired a military defense lawyer. Period. If you take nothing else from this episode in your house, make it that one sentence. You’re not talking anyone until we get a military defense lawyer on your side. Now, what if the accuser is an ex-wife or ex-girlfriend?

That’s a very common thing. So, I want to spend a few minutes on that specific situation because it comes up in many, many cases. And many times these allegations pop up later on. So, you could be married to someone and your spouse is going through a child custody dispute or messing with the ex-wife and in some sort of legal battle or the wife’s just vindictive that he married you and has moved on. And so, these cases come up all the time where the spouse, the current spouse, hires us to defend her husband against the ex who’s making allegations.

I’ve had many of these cases where the current marriage is doing fine. You’ve been married for a couple years. You guys have a kid on the way and boom, an allegation comes out of nowhere. Sexual assault, rape, you name it. And it’s from some ex-girlfriend or from an ex-wife.

I’ve had cases where the ex finds out that he’s moved on or he’s having a child or he left her and now he’s moved on and has a healthy relationship with someone else and boom, the allegation comes out out of vindictiveness, for revenge, or to get leverage in a family court situation. So, let me be very, very clear about this. Over the course of my career, I’ve seen many cases where the timing tells the whole story. The allegation arrives the same week as the child custody filing. Or the husband is trying to change the child support.

Or the husband got married and posted it on social media. And you got some crazy ass ex stalking your husband. Some ex from years ago. Or some woman he had a fling with a couple years even before he met you. And they come out of the woodwork.

Military prosecutors know these motives exist, but they charge these cases all the time. To me as a defense lawyer, timing, text messages, prior statements, all of these things can be used to help build a defense. Sometimes they become the whole case. The timing of an allegation is super crucial to us. So again, you can be very helpful in helping us gather this information.

So if you’re currently married to a service member and you see an ex trying to destroy your family or destroy your relationship with an allegation, a false allegation, here’s your job. It’s the same four tasks from earlier, but amplified. We need the timeline. Here it matters more than ever. When was the divorce filed?

When was the custody contested? When did the allegation surface? What was being posted on social media? What was said in the family court paperwork? When did she go to CID?

What was said to CID or OSI or NCIS? Family court filings are gold in these cases because people say things under oath in custody battles that often contradict what they tell criminal investigators. Sometimes they add more. Sometimes they add new allegations. Sometimes they exaggerate.

So you need to preserve every court document, every message. Also, don’t be responding to provocation. If the ex is reaching out to you, threatening you, posting things on social media, again, zip it. Document it. Get it to the military defense lawyer.

I’ve seen accusers in these situations deliberately bait the new spouse into an ugly text exchange and then hand over portions of it to the investigators as proof of what a hostile person you are, how you attack them, how you threaten them. I’ve seen them basically fabricate evidence, and the military often just runs with it. Believe it or not, they often don’t even investigate it. So, when she pokes, you go silent and you screenshot. In addition, if you have a civilian lawyer out there dealing with your case, don’t let these cases the military and the civilian side run on separate tracks with lawyers who don’t talk to each other.

What your husband’s divorce lawyer lets him say in a custody declaration can sink him in a court-martial, and vice versa. We work all the time and coordinate directly with family law counsel or lawyers who are representing our clients on the civilian side. We have to be on the same team. If your lawyers aren’t talking to each other, something eventually gets said in one courtroom that detonates in the other. So, now let’s talk about money.

This is a conversation that people don’t want to have. And the question is this, how do people afford to pay you? How do you pay for a civilian military defense counsel? Your husband does get a free military defense lawyer. In the army, it’s called TDS, Air Force, it’s the ADC, Navy, Marine Corps, and the Coast Guard, they call them DSOs.

These are real attorneys. Some of them are good. Almost all of them are very inexperienced. They have good intentions. They just don’t have decades of experience, and that matters.

Also, you often don’t get to choose which one of them is representing you. So, you could be assigned someone fresh out of law school with no experience, or you could get someone who has a year or two of experience. They also very heavy caseload, sometimes doing 20-30 cases a year, flying over the country, and they don’t have the resources to devote to your case. On top of that, many of these lawyers, even though they’re licensed attorneys and they have good intentions, they just don’t have the experience of having done hundreds of court-martial cases. They don’t have it.

So, for example, I’ve written multiple books along with my wife. I teach military defense and criminal defense around the country. I’ve written more books than anyone else alive right now in this country on cross-examination, and I teach cross-examination to lawyers across the country. I’m not talking just military lawyers, I’m talking to lawyers of the highest caliber at national conferences. Now, we can’t guarantee an outcome, but I guarantee you you’re not going to find anyone active duty that’s a defense lawyer that has anywhere close to the amount of experience that I have as a criminal defense lawyer.

And that matters because as a military defense lawyer what matters the most is strategy, experience, dealing with bullying prosecutors and commands, being able to cross-examine, do opening statements, and closing arguments. Those are our main tools. Those are tools that are developed and sharpened over the course of decades in actual court cases and actual courtroom trials. Now, whether a free military lawyer is good enough for your case, it really depends on what’s at stake. So, here are some things to think about if you’re deciding whether or not to hire a military defense lawyer.

If it’s a minor issue, a low-level Article 15 for something that you actually did, and it’s not going to hurt your career, uh the free lawyer will probably be all that you need. Not every case needs a military defense lawyer. But, as the stakes change, the equation changes. If this is a sexual assault allegation or sexual harassment or any type of domestic violence where conviction means confinement, possible registration as a sex offender, and a dishonorable discharge, or if you have anywhere from 10 to 20 years of service, and you could be losing your retirement, losing your pension, losing your VA benefits that are worth anywhere from a million to two or three million dollars, or you may be going to jail for the rest of your life, then you probably need to get someone to defend your spouse that has a lot more experience than the free military lawyer.

If you’re looking at a discharge of an other than honorable discharge or losing your GI bill, your VA loan, your disability benefits. Again, we’re talking about hundreds of thousands of dollars in benefits over the course of your life. This is serious business, and you should be asking yourself not, “Can we afford a lawyer?” The question then becomes, “Can we afford to lose? Is it worth losing potentially all these benefits, or should we try to fight to win?”

So, what does a civilian defense lawyer cost? Now, serious cases cost tens of thousands of dollars to fight. That means that if there’s a contested trial, for example, in Germany, where you’re taking on the entire government, and they’re trying to put you in jail for the rest of your life, and your lawyer has to fly there, or go there, or wherever the case is, and fight all the motions, and fight the case from the beginning to the end, it could become very expensive, anywhere from 40 to 80,000 dollars, depending on the location, the number of victims, the complexity of the case, how long it’s going to take. But, think about it. If you lose that case, you could be looking, in many cases, at 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 years of life in prison, and sex offender registration, which means you’re going to have a heck of a time getting a job and living anywhere afterwards.

So, it’s kind of an all or nothing thing. You need to really hunker down, because the potential outcome will be so devastating to your spouse, and to your family, and to your children, that losing is not really an option. Even though there’s no guarantee, I will tell you this, the more experience your defense team is at fighting these types of cases that your husband’s facing, the more likely you’re going to get a better result. Even if that means getting less years in jail, versus getting maxed out, or getting an acquittal, versus getting convicted of a couple things. These are big differences.

So, the skill of the lawyer, the experience of the lawyer, the strategy of the lawyer, the reputation of the lawyer, all of those things can be worth much, much more than you’re paying for that lawyer if you lose the case versus if you win the case. So, when we get a not guilty verdict and our client goes back to work, his name’s cleared, he’s able to continue on, that is a huge result. And I’ve had many of those where in my opinion, the client would have been convicted, no doubt, if he would have gone with the military lawyer. In almost every case, if you’re going to compare them to someone who’s been doing this for 20 years exclusively, they don’t have the bandwidth, they don’t have the skill, they don’t have the knowledge, they don’t have the expertise to go in and deliver that same result as someone, for example, who’s been doing it for 20-plus years like myself and my wife app.

There’s no question in my mind. That’s not a sales pitch. That’s a fact. Just like your husband, if your husband’s a full-bird colonel and and is working at the Pentagon, that person has a heck of a lot more experience than some lieutenant fresh out of an ROTC program. There’s no comparison in terms of background and experience and training of someone who’s been doing it for 25 years versus a year or two.

So, it’s up to you whether or not you want to spend the money for that expertise, but don’t be complaining afterwards and saying how could this happen to me whenever you go in with a free lawyer who’s been doing it for 6 months and your husband gets maxed out. Now, that could happen anyway depending on the facts, but we do whatever we can to mitigate and to put ourselves in the best position possible to get the best result possible based on your facts, based on everything that’s going on in your case, based on the charges. Another thing you need to be careful for, if a lawyer’s too good to be true and too cheap to be true, you’re probably not getting a good lawyer. I mean, it sounds crass at times to talk about prices, but if you hire a lawyer who’s charging you 10, 15,000 dollars for a contested rape case, you’re probably paying about a third of what a highly qualified lawyer would charge you.

If the lawyer’s not in demand, they will charge you whatever they can to to their rent. Lawyers that are in demand are usually better lawyers in my opinion. Lawyers that are in demand know how to space out their cases, know how to charge the right amount, know what it’s going to take time-wise to prepare a case, and they’re not going to just going to rack and stack as many cases as possible for the lowest fee possible. That is a recipe for a disaster. Cheap is not good when it comes to medical advice and legal advice.

Also, the cheaper you pay, the more likely they’re going to recommend a guilty plea. That’s another thing I see. People will try to undercut us by 50, 60% then I hear afterwards, “Oh, they played the guy out first opportunity.” So, they collected as much as possible, told you your case has no chance, no hope, and then they played your husband guilty. You’re better off going with a free military lawyer if you’re trying to do that.

So, how do family members actually pay? Well, in our experience, sometimes they use savings, investments, sometimes family, sometimes a service members have money from deployments, or they just knowing that it’s going to take a year to two, sometimes two and a half years, they save up the money and do what they can. It is also very common for junior enlisted service members to reach out to family members. You should not keep your family in the dark. Whether you’re going to ask them for money or not, your family needs to be involved.

They’re going to find out in the end if you get convicted, so you might as well be upfront with them even if it’s embarrassing. Tell them so they can be there to help you, support you financially, also be there for you if you end up getting convicted. You’re going to need them to help get you back on your feet. Here are a couple questions I would ask. How long have you been doing this specifically as criminal defense as a civilian practitioner?

Years of military experience in my opinion don’t matter. I’ve seen people spent 20 years in the army and did one or two cases, don’t know anything about criminal defense, and they put out a shingle saying, “Hey, I defend service members.” They’re often not good lawyers. What you want to be looking for is years of criminal defense experience in court-martials. 10 to 20 years should be the minimum.

Why would you hire someone with two, three years of experience doing defense work? You might as well go with the pre-military JAG. Also, you need to figure out how much time they spend on sexual assault cases, domestic violence, those types of cases. Don’t just ask them, do your homework. Have they written about it?

Have they written articles, books? Do they teach it? For example, I teach UCMJ at a national law school. I’m an adjunct professor. I also teach the law of armed conflict as a law professor.

That does include the dozens and dozens of classes I’ve taught to lawyers across the country on things such as cross-examination, impeachment of witnesses, strategy, sexual assault, things like that. In closing, can your marriage survive UCMJ action or court-martial? The answer is maybe. You have a better chance of surviving if the family unites and you agree to fight this together. You agree to stick together.

Now, you’re going to have to be in it for the long haul. Sometimes one or two Christmases, months and months and sometimes years. The case will move into your house. It’s going to be a topic of conversation. It’s going to be sitting there at the dinner table.

You might even begin to resent your husband because of decisions that he made to put you into the situation. You might find him up at 4:00 a. m. wondering what’s happening. He may swing between rage and silence and depression.

You’ll swing between fierce loyalty and some nights doubt and then guilt about the doubt. That’s not a broken marriage, that is absolutely normal when you fear the unknown. That’s absolutely normal in any relationship. I’ve helped many, many families through this. I’ve helped families come out on the other side.

Here are a few tips. You have to contain the case. You can’t let it dominate every thought, every conversation for the next two, three years. Pick a time to talk about it and protect the rest of the time for your actual life, the kids, the dog, the dinner, anything in between, normal husband and wife interactions. You also need to get support.

I think that’s very important. Go to a therapist, a chaplain that has confidentiality. The spouse group does not count. Be careful who you vent to. And watch your husband.

Service members under investigation carry a heavy load. They often become isolated. They start drinking excessively or worse. If you see him going somewhere dark, that’s when you reach out to a doctor, a chaplain, and professional help. It’s not a betrayal of your trust to get your husband the help that they need, especially if there’s something self-harm involved there.

You need to reach out immediately for help if you see any signs of that. Remember, while you’re going through this, one allegation, one investigation, one piece of paper does not erase who he’s been the past 10, 15, 20 years. It doesn’t decide the next 15 years unless you let it go unfought. But, I will guarantee you if you fight it, if you stand together, you have a better chance of surviving. So, here’s the recap.

Silence is structural. Stop mining the command for answers. Learn the four stages so the vocabulary stops scaring you. Educate yourself. Prepare the timeline.

Preserve evidence. Put together a witness list. And hire the best military lawyer you can find that you can afford. And avoid these three fatal mistakes. Don’t be contacting people.

Don’t be posting on social media. Don’t be contacting the accuser or their family members. Don’t be threatening people. No posting things on social media. And don’t be talking to the investigators without a military defense lawyer present.

In most cases, we’re going to tell you don’t talk to them, period. If an ex is behind it, timing and paperwork are your best friends. And have money conversations with clear eyes about what’s actually at stake. And what are the real costs of a conviction, of a trial, not just in the next year or two, but in the next 20, 30, 40 years. If you want to talk to someone about your husband’s case, that’s what we do.

My wife, Alexandra, and I have defended service members in these exact situations at bases all over the world. And it will not be the first time the call came from the spouse. We’ll often ask you to have your husband talk to us first, and then we will loop you in just to make sure you understand attorney-client privilege. You’ll find us at ucmjdefense.com.

Our consultations are confidential and they’re free. And until then, I have one sentence for you. Not until you’ve talked to a lawyer. That’s what you should be telling your spouse if they’re under investigation or facing any type of UCMJ action. Take care of each other.

I’m Mike Waddington, and thank you for listening.