Going from Law School to the Air Force JAG Corps

Episode Notes

Transcript

Montana Funk (00:13):

This is Young Lawyer Rising from the A. A Young Lawyers Division and Legal Talk Network. I’m your host, Montana Funk. Today we are joined by Tony Ghiotto. Tony is the inaugural director of the Kimball R. and Karen Gatsis Anderson Center for Advocacy and Professionalism, as well as the Director of Trial advocacy. Tony talks to us today about his time in the Jag Corps as well as transitioning to a career as a professor at the Illinois College of Law where he currently teaches. We are so excited to have Tony with us today. Tony, thank you so much for joining us today. I’m super excited to have you here and I look forward to this conversation.

Tony Ghiotto (00:55):

Thank you for having me. I’m super happy to be here.

Montana Funk (00:57):

So let’s just start off briefly, if you can kind of give our listeners a very brief oversight about what you’re doing, what part of your career you’re in, and then we’re going to kind of jump into the nitty gritty ins and outs of your career.

Tony Ghiotto (01:09):

Sure. Right now I’m a professor at the University of Illinois College of Law in Urbana Champaign. And part of what I do here is I direct our trial advocacy program and I also direct the Anderson Center for Professionalism and Advocacy.

Montana Funk (01:25):

Awesome. So I know that, and we were talking about this before to our listeners, I’m going to give them a little bit of a hint about what I’m about to say and I’m sure, so you obviously had a career in the JAG Corps and for our listeners, I’m Canadian, so I say big, weird jag weird. Everyone bear with me. But I want to talk about that obviously. That’s something I think a lot of our listeners would be really interested to hear about. Just start me off with what inspired you to become a JAG officer?

Tony Ghiotto (01:55):

Sure. So I joined the JAG Corps in the Air Force, so each military department has their own JAG Corps. So I did the Air Force Jag Corps and I did it right out of law school. So I went to law school at Emory in Atlanta. No military background whatsoever. The military was not on my radar. It was not in my plans, but when I was at Emory it was very expensive. Emory remains to be very expensive. I’m a first generation college graduate, so I did law school mostly through loans, and I just thought I would go to law school and go to a big law firm, maybe King and Spalding in Atlanta and make a lot of money. And then probably late in my first year of law school, beginning of second year, I’m just like, you know what? I really want to do criminal law.

(02:39):

I took a class called criminal procedure and that kind of, all the lights started going off and everything made sense to me. But then I was going through the interview process and I learned very quickly that prosecutors and defense lawyers don’t make a lot of money, and that was before the time of loan forgiveness. So I was going through the process of interviewing with a lot of DA’s offices throughout the country, a lot of public defender’s offices, and then the Air Force JA Corps came and interviewed on campus and I was impressed. They did a lot of criminal prosecution right away. The pay was pretty good. They had some loan forgiveness, they had bonuses and the opportunity to move around and to serve. So I did the interview, didn’t really think I had much of a chance. And then a few months later I was studying for the bar and I got a call and they gave me an offer.

Montana Funk (03:27):

That’s awesome. I’m sure that was a surprise a little, I guess happy surprise in the midst of studying for the bar.

Tony Ghiotto (03:33):

Yes, yes. I was surprised. I did not think I would be very competitive, so I was very fortunate to get the offer.

Montana Funk (03:40):

So when they came and did that interview process, what did they tell you as a candidate about what the exact look of the position would look like? Obviously you’d mentioned prosecuting criminal cases, but what was their, I guess, overview of what the job actually would entail?

Tony Ghiotto (03:54):

It’s been a while, and I know they do interviewing a little bit differently now, but I remember it was one of those 20 minute on-campus interviews. It was really quick. What they were really emphasizing was that military lawyers and Jags do a lot of different things right away. So basically you go to your first assignment, wherever it would be, and you get exposed to multiple areas of law because at a base legal office is what we call it, everybody prosecutes. But in the meantime, you may be doing torts. If somebody slips and falls on base, you may be doing labor law because there’s a lot of civilian workers on base and they even have unions. And so you’re representing the Air Force in labor disputes. You do legal assistance. So any military member and their family members and retirees can get wills done. Powers of attorneys just come in for a general landlord tenant stuff.

(04:45):

And so, so this idea that, look, you get to be kind of a journalist and you get to be a journalist and kind of find your way a little bit while also getting a lot of courtroom experience. And that’s within the first two years. And then they talked about after two years that you get to go do defense work. So you kind of get to do both sides, which I thought was really exciting. I was always one of the conflicted ones. I never really felt if I was a true prosecutor or a true defense lawyer. So I liked the idea of being able to do both. And then also too, they said down the road at year four or whatever they would send you to go get your LLM in environmental law or government contracts. Just a lot of opportunities. And that’s what I remember being a hard sell and what got me excited. I was excited to do criminal work, but I always had that do in my mind if that was what I would want to do. So I liked the idea of being exposed to a bunch of different areas.

Montana Funk (05:37):

Yeah, it sounds like it really was an opportunity to kind of dip your toes into different areas and kind of like you were saying, right, you could do torts or you could do criminals. So that’s really interesting. And what specifically were you actually doing?

Tony Ghiotto (05:52):

So when my first assignment was in Phoenix, Arizona. So when you in first you go to officer training school and then you go to Jack school and then finally you go after your first duty assignment, which was in Arizona. So when I started off, I was our chief of legal assistants, which means I was the one kind of doing all the wills and powers of attorneys and doing legal advice. And then I will say though, probably within my first two weeks I had my first trial, which was a fairly complicated case. It was a sexual assault case right off the bat. So you’re kind of doing the day-to-Day legal assistance stuff and doing some torts as well. The weirdest issue I had right away was one of our jets flew too low over a farm and it forced a cow to go into labor and the farmer or the rancher lost the calf because of the premature, so they brought a claim against the air force. So I worked that issue. So yeah, so that was right away. But I will say within a year, most of what I was doing was criminal law. We called it military justice, but I think by the end of my first year I was doing almost 100% criminal law.

Montana Funk (07:00):

They really threw you right into it.

Tony Ghiotto (07:02):

They did. They did. And it was bad timing. I came in in 2006, it as part of my interview, they said that Jags didn’t really deploy that much, which was true in 2005. In 2006 when things were really, really active in Iraq, a lot of Jags deployed. So we probably had about eight attorneys in our office, and I think within a six month period, I want to say five to six of us deployed only leaving two or three. So it was really baptism by fire. I was one of the ones left behind, but all the work kind of flew down to those of us who were still there.

Montana Funk (07:39):

I can’t imagine having to take on all of that when you’re going from a certain amount of people to then being like, alright, they’re going off. We’re kind of the ones stuck. Right?

Tony Ghiotto (07:48):

Exactly. Exactly.

Montana Funk (07:50):

So I want to take a quick break, but then I think that’s a good segue to jump into my next question. So let’s take a quick break and when we get back, we’ll move on.

(09:45):

(09:45):

So before the break, we were talking about the deployment and how you were kind of left behind to hold down the fort for a better sense of the word back where you were. So what were some of the pros and cons that you faced or I guess some of the struggles, but also some of the pros that you faced that you want to tell our listeners just so that they get all sides of it.

Tony Ghiotto (10:07):

Sure. I mean, the pros were, I got a lot of courtroom experience really young in really complicated cases. So for a lot of people who want to do criminal work, you may start off at a DA’s office and you’re going to start off doing traffic tickets. Misdemeanors fairly low, I don’t want to diminish it, but fairly low level stuff. And then eventually you’re going to work your way up to doing more complicated felonies. I got to do fairly complicated felonies right away, and when I think back about my experience, I just can’t think of any other way where I would’ve gotten that experience. And I think you grow close to the people that you’re working with. I think there is a, we’re all in this together mentality. The negative is you kind of learn the hard way. There were mistakes I made and cases I screwed up, and I just remember we had one of the first cases where we had a fairly important civilian witness.

(10:59):

I didn’t subpoena the witness and it turned out to be a big issue, but then I’m like, I don’t even know how to do a subpoena. So it was kind of difficult learning by fire. And also too, the quality of life probably wasn’t as high as I would’ve liked it, but when I look back on now, it really formed the foundation for me. And I was young when I went to law school. I graduated when I was 24 and going back, I wasn’t positive about what I wanted to do. And I think being thrown into it too, it kind of cemented, it’s like no criminal work and criminal law is where my heart is. So that was a huge positive as well. It made me grow up and gave me some direction too.

Montana Funk (11:37):

Well, we have a lot of similarities. I also graduated at the same age and I’m working actually criminal defense now at our public defender’s office here. So I get what you’re saying. You really don’t get that experience at a lot of places unless you’re in a place where, like you said, you’re getting thrown into these massive cases, right, exactly. It’s drinking from a fire hose, but it’s fun in a way and fast paced. And so I get that. I totally get that. And then I also think, and correct me if I’m wrong here, but I believe you served on a board, is that correct?

Tony Ghiotto (12:08):

So I ended up spending 12 years total in the JAG Corps, probably my first four years were relatively run of the mill Air Force C type stuff. Then I deployed to Afghanistan. And then after my deployment to Afghanistan, we headed to Washington DC where I basically worked at the Air Force’s Military Justice headquarters. We were kind of the ones overseeing military justice policy and it’s kind of called being air staff advisor to the Judge Advocate general. And after about two years, they sent me over to the office of Secretary of Defense for a year. And within the office of the Secretary of Defense, there’s this thing called the Defense Legal Policy Board, and it’s kind of a dormant board that doesn’t really do anything. But then if the Secretary of Defense says, Hey, we need somebody to look at this thing, they activate the board and then the board comes alive.

(12:57):

And so what had happened was during that time period, a group of Marines went into this town in Iraq, and basically they slaughtered the whole village and including many innocent people. So they took them off to trial, lots of different things happened, but basically only one person was convicted and he received no punishment at all pursuant to a guilty plea. So there was a huge public outcry. New York Times did a lot of reporting on it, understandably so. It went to the Secretary of Defense, and he was kind of like, this was Panetta at the time during the Obama administration was basically something had to go wrong here. There’s got to be something wrong with our military justice system for this to happen. So basically the Secretary of Defense convened the board to look at how we dealt with situations like that in Iraq and Afghanistan, and then each service had to give a lawyer to be one of the riders of the board. So I was the Air Force representative. I wasn’t on the board, but I was the one who wrote the report in conjunction with the board.

Montana Funk (14:00):

Okay. Well, first of all, I want to say thank you for all of your work that clearly you did a lot. And I think something that I’m sure our listeners are listening, hearing about you being deployed and having these huge cases, it might be a little bit daunting to someone who’s listening and be like, okay, I really want to do this. But what do you say to those listeners who know this is the direction they want to go, but maybe are a little bit apprehensive or scared about deployment or having a really big case? What would you tell them?

Tony Ghiotto (14:27):

I just talked to a student about this very thing yesterday. I never wanted to deploy. I mean, there’s a lot of people who joined the JAG Corps because of that. We had a baby at home. My wife was pregnant with number two, and I got my deployment tasking to Afghanistan. I was not looking forward to it, and it was hard. I don’t lie. And if you had told me when I joined that I was going to have to do it, I probably would’ve been like, eh, no thanks. But what I tell people is it was for me professionally, the best experience of my life. I mean, personally, very difficult, but professionally, it was an incredibly rewarding experience. The relationships I made there with other lawyers and interpreters, intel officers, it was just a great environment to work in. And I think there is a point in your career where you just, I felt like you grow up where you’re like, okay, I’m not a baby lawyer anymore.

(15:21):

There’s a seriousness of purpose. And so that’s what I tell people now. It’s like, look, when I look at my career, if I was on the other end of it, the beginning, and I’m like, oh, that’s not where I want my career to go, and I don’t think I can do it. But for me, I did it and it wasn’t that bad. And every experience I had made me grow as a human being. It made me grow as a lawyer, it made me grow as an advocate. I like to think it made me grow as a leader. So in many ways, when I look back at my Jag Corps experience, I feel like that’s where I grew up and learned my seriousness of purpose. And that’s what I tell young students and young lawyers who are thinking about it. It is hard. And there were times when I was in Afghanistan and living in a tent with nine other dudes and working seven days a week for six months and 14 hour days.

(16:12):

And I was thinking about some of my law school friends who were at big law and I’m like, man, they got it right. There were times I’m like, why am I here? And they’re there, but I wouldn’t trade that experience for anything. I think it gives you an appreciation for service, it makes you appreciation for sacrifice, it gives you appreciation for just the importance of hard work. There’s a book by Angela Duckworth who’s a psychology professor at Penn called Grit. And basically her theory is what sets people apart isn’t natural ability or intellect. It’s grit. It’s having a goal and being willing to do whatever it takes to meet that goal. And I feel that that’s what my deployment and even being thrown into trial work right away gave me. And so when I look at my career in two phases, and I think where I landed at now as a professor at a very good law school who’s directing a great program, I don’t think I’d get to this point without serving and without my deployment and without my time in Washington DC

Montana Funk (17:20):

It sounds like it really shaped you and thanks again, and it really is important. And yeah, I think that hopefully our listeners who are considering it just realize how really important of a job it is. And although it might seem daunting and scary, it sounds like it really kind of made you the person you are today. So

Tony Ghiotto (17:37):

It is like that John Kennedy quote. Sometimes you do things just because they’re hard. There’s something to be said for that.

Montana Funk (17:43):

Yeah, absolutely. I want to take a quick break and then when I come back, I kind of want to jump into your role as a professor and how you kind of made that journey. This episode is brought to you by the American Bar Association’s Young Lawyers Division. Starting a new career in the law can feel overwhelming. The A-B-A-Y-L-D provides resources, CLE, and a network of peers from coast to coast to help you settle into your new legal career. Claim your young lawyer membership for just $75 at ambar.org/join.

(19:05):

So now that we talked about your opportunities and your career with the JAG Corps, I do want to kind of segue into how you made that change from that area to now being a professor, and what kind of made you switch roles?

Tony Ghiotto (19:19):

Again, totally unexpected. So I was in active duty Air Force Jack for 12 years. Usually when you’re in for that long, you don’t get out because the magical number in the military is 20 because when you get to 20 years, you get a retirement and it’s a pretty nice retirement. So we were fairly committed to putting in the 20. I had a great assignment in northern Italy, not too far out of Venice. It was a great assignment, we’re super happy. I was doing well. And then we kind of received a last minute move to Rio, Texas, and we weren’t super happy about the move geographically, but it was a better job. I was basically going to Texas to be in charge of my own legal office and career-wise was great. And so we’re sad to leave Italy early, but we got to Texas and it was a tough job, very rewarding job.

(20:12):

But at that point, my kids were getting older and my kids were in second grade and kindergarten, and they really, really struggled with the move. And so that was kind of on the back of my mind, and I had a good job that was required really long hours. I’ll be honest, I was working 12 to 14 hour days. It was stressful. And I remember at that point I was the head lawyer at the base, which meant that I was kind of responsible for overseeing our whole legal office. But you’re also at that point, the principal advisor to the base commander, and he and I had a strong disagreement one day about a case about it was a case that I thought should go to trial, and he did not feel it should go to trial. And I just got back to my office and I was just exhausted and the kids weren’t unhappy, I was exhausted, I wasn’t around.

(21:00):

And I just remember talking to my wife and I don’t know if I can do this anymore. And she was like, well, what’s your dream job? And I said, well, to be a law professor. And she kind of laughed because I never really talked about it. It’s one of those things where it’s in the back of your mind, but for me, I never really thought it was a possibility. I have a very unusual background for a law professor. I went to a good law school, I went to Emory, but if you look at most law professors, it’s top five law schools. You’re looking at Harvard, Yale, Stanford, NYUI didn’t clerk. I was a jag. There are a few academics now who are former Jags, but back then there was very few of us had it written a lot. So I just kind of sat in my office and I Googled, how do you become a law professor?

(21:41):

And there was this way, then you apply to this website, the American Association of Law Schools, and you pay $500 and you submit this weird resume, and then any school who wants to interview you post from that, I’m like, well, this seems like a scam. This doesn’t seem real. And it just so happened the day I Googled, that was the deadline. So I’m like, you know what? I’m just going to take a chance, right? At some point you have to bet on yourself and take a chance. And I did it and I submitted it. I didn’t hear anything back. And then just one day I got an email from this professor at this law school in Raleigh, North Carolina, Campbell University School of Law, and the professor was like, Hey, we’d love to interview you. Are you available for, I think back then they were doing Skype for an initial interview.

(22:27):

And I’m like, sure. I did my initial interview. Then they invited me back for a callback and all the Wow. I’m like, this can’t be real, right? There’s no way they’re going to hire me. And now that I’m on the other end, I’m like, I don’t know how they hired me. But I went there and I interviewed in person and they gave me an offer and I accepted it. And I’ll never forget, I found out I was selected for promotion to Lieutenant Colonel on a Tuesday. And then I got the offer from Campbell on a Wednesday. Oh my gosh. And I just remember Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday being a lot of deliberation on what we’re going to do, but we were excited about the idea of moving to North Carolina. We were excited about me having a job where I was around more. I was excited for a new challenge. The pay worked out, and so we took the leap and looking back on it, I’m like, that was a pretty big jump. It didn’t feel that way at the time. It just felt like the natural progression. And then I went to Campbell and I had a wonderful five years while at Campbell.

Montana Funk (23:28):

Well, that’s awesome. It really sounds like your job’s kind of surprised you both times. But yeah,

Tony Ghiotto (23:33):

And that’s what I tell students now. I’m like, it’s not always a clear trajectory. Your first job isn’t usually your last job and doors open that you don’t see opening. And sometimes it’s just a matter of you having the nerve to put yourself out there and see if the door is for you. I’ve been very, very fortunate.

Montana Funk (23:51):

Yeah, that’s awesome. And I guess something that I’m curious about is how do you think your background helped shape you to be a good professor?

Tony Ghiotto (23:59):

That’s a tough one. So when you’re in a jag, whether you’re in the Air Force, Navy, army, Marine, one thing they always talk to you about is you’re an officer first, lawyer second. I’m not sure I always agreed with that. I think a lot of times I would be like, you’re both right. You should be a really good lawyer and you should be a really good officer. And in fact, if you’re doing both of them the right way, there should be no conflict with one another. But I think this idea of officership has kind of followed me into academia in that it’s not so much officership. I actually think I’m probably a little bit too Len with my students. But it’s this idea I think of viewing yourselves as a leader and a mentor as opposed to this adversarial relationship.

(24:47):

I try to have perspective and humility and understand what these students are going through and mentor them and lead them as opposed to only wanting to go right or wanting to. I love colleagues at every school I’ve been at, but some academics are more concerned with writing or doing outside work. So I think it’s the being willing to lead and mentor students is a big thing. I think also too, I think my background gives me perspective, a very traditional background for a legal academic, and again, I’m not faulting this at all, but it is to kind of, you go to law school, you do a clerkship, maybe you go practice for one to two years and then you go right into academia. I think having 12 years of practice experience, also a very unusual background experience. And to be honest with you, and I’ve been in a war, I think it gives you a perspective as to what matters and what doesn’t matter. And so for me, if I’m teaching and I call on a student randomly and she’s not prepared, I don’t take it personally, right? It’s not about me at that point. And I think I can show them understanding and maybe talk to ’em offline, but I think it’s understanding that what we’re doing isn’t the most important thing in the world, and that these students have things going on outside the classroom too that maybe we need to talk about before I humiliate them in class

Montana Funk (26:12):

Before you cold call them every second.

Tony Ghiotto (26:15):

Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

Montana Funk (26:16):

No, I think that that’s a really unique perspective that not everyone has. And I think that that’s important. You saying that you’ve clearly seen things that a lot of people are never going to see in their lifetime, but then like you said, that probably makes you have an ability to engage with your students in a special way. So I think that that’s really important. I’m sure that your students appreciate it. I think I want to make sure that too, that we touch on. Not only are there students that you are helping, but you have this unique perspective, like we said, where you also help veterans who were in positions who maybe now they want to enter a legal career or maybe another career. It doesn’t even mean to be legal, but they are looking back at their journey and their experiences and their struggling. So what advice would you have for them who are like, Hey, I also want to make this career change, but I don’t know how to do it.

Tony Ghiotto (27:03):

I tell them that it’s hard. It’s hard to make the move from the military to civilian life, and it’s okay that it’s hard. I think I was in denial my first year or two when I made the change where I’m like, this is great. I don’t have to shave. I don’t have to get my hair cut. People don’t call me, sir, I have a first name again. But when I look back on it, it was hard. And I think especially I’m at Illinois now. When I think back about my time at Campbell, I think I struggled a lot with the military is really good at building a sense of community, and it’s a community that’s focused on a singular mission. And I think that’s another thing I pulled from the military is being mission focused. What are we actually doing here and how are we all going to work together to achieve that mission?

(27:48):

And you just don’t see that a lot in academia. The mission, obviously, you want to educate students and prepare good, thoughtful lawyers, but at the same time, you have writing requirements, you have committee assignments, you have all of these different ways to get there. So I struggled a lot with, wait a minute, we’re all not pulling together in the same way. And some of us are acting in a self-interested way. You have that in the military, but it wasn’t that bad. And so what I tell veterans now, I’m like, look, it is hard, right? You’re not going to have the same sense of community. Not everybody’s going to share the same experiences. A good example for us is we moved every two years in the military, but most people moved every two years. So when you got to a new place, everybody welcomed you. Everybody was understanding that you were new and they were there to help you.

(28:37):

When we got out and moved to North Carolina, we moved to this great neighborhood, but everybody had been there forever. So the kids had a hard time at school because they were new, whereas before. So I just tell ’em, it’s hard. It’s hard, and it’s okay that you’re going to struggle a little bit to be prepared to struggle. But I also tell ’em, I’m like, but you need to somewhat put the military away. Sometimes I think we, and we have a bad habit where we want to make everything about our military service. I’m obviously talking in broad generalities, but it’s like you got to meet everybody halfway, right? In the military, you use a ton of acronyms. Not everybody’s going to know the acronyms. Not everybody’s going to thank you for your service. Not everybody is going to know that you were a big deal, and you just need to accept that, right?

(29:22):

And you just need to accept that it’s meeting everybody halfway. And then from there, I just recommend just in the military, find a mentor. And it doesn’t have to be somebody who served in the military, just find somebody who you look up to and get that mentorship from ’em. But it is hard, and I tell them it’s like, be prepared to get upset. Sometimes after I got out of the military, my first boss, he could not get my service. He always said I was in the Army and I was in the Air Force, right? That’s a little thing, but it really started to wear on me. And so it’s one of those things where you just talk to him and be like, just, you got to be patient. You got to be patient.

Montana Funk (30:01):

Yeah. I mean, I’m sure there are things, like I said earlier, right? You’ve experienced stuff that people are never going to experience. But I think you made a good point saying find a mentor. And I think that this is important because I think you’re a mentor. I mean, you’re a mentor. I try to be, you are a big deal and you are a mentor. And I think that our listeners are going to listen to this, and I think hopefully take some comfort in knowing that there’s someone out there, you who’s been through this experience, this very unique experience. So kind of a segue into my last question and my easiest one, but I also think that you cast it yourself. So you’re now a podcast host too, but

Tony Ghiotto (30:37):

I dunno about that.

Montana Funk (30:38):

Well, you can join whenever you want. But just tell our listeners, for those who are looking for a mentor, someone to look up to, someone to reach out to, where are they able to find you if they want to reach out to you to get some more advice,

Tony Ghiotto (30:50):

And please do so. The best way is probably over email. My email is a [email protected]. That’s not easy to spell. That’s A-G-H-I-O TTO [email protected]. And to be honest with you, if you just Google Tony Ghiotto Illinois, my faculty profile comes up and it has it. I am on Twitter or X, whatever they’re calling it now, unfortunately. So I think my handle there is at Ghiotto Tony, I think. But email works great. So like I said, if you literally just Google Tony Ghiotto, Illinois, you get my email address, and please reach out and more than happy to set up a Zoom or a phone call and talk you through this, because to me, that’s the best part of the job.

Montana Funk (31:35):

Well, thank you so much for joining. I appreciate it. And I do want to say thank you for your service. So thank you so much for being on here today, and I know our listeners are going to love this episode.

Tony Ghiotto (31:43):

Great. And thank you for what you do for young lawyers. It’s super important.

Montana Funk (31:46):

Thanks, listeners. That is our show. As always, I want to thank you for joining us and tuning in. If you like what you heard, what you know to do, recommend us to a friend. You know where you can find us. Until next time, I’m your host Montana Funk, and you’ve been listening to Young Lawyer Rising, brought to you by the ABA Young Lawyers Division, and the audio professionals at Legal Talk Network,

(31:47):

Continue Reading