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Generals speak on changes affecting Airmen

  • Published
  • By Tech. Sgt. Kevin Wallace
  • 436th Airlift Wing Public Affairs
DOVER AIR FORCE BASE, Del. --  Top Air Force legal officials recently discussed current and future changes impacting Airmen during a visit to Dover Air Force Base, Del.

Maj. Gen. Charles Dunlap, Headquarters U.S. Air Force deputy judge advocate general, and Brig. Gen. Steven Lepper, Air Mobility Command staff judge advocate, entertained an interview after their Article-6 Inspection of the Legal Office here March. 23.

The generals focused on the future restructuring of the JAG Corps and the success of the recent alterations to claims filing.

"There are several changes in store for the JAG Corps," said General Dunlap. "However, due to their design, they will be transparent to clients. We are implementing more efficient processes and want to stress that clients won't feel anything adverse. In other words, they can be assured they will get the same or better level of service."

One change General Dunlap spoke of was a new system for Air Force judiciary circuits.

Commanders expressed concerns of needs to rapidly deal with Airmen who get into trouble, he said. The new transformation will provide better support for good order and discipline.

"Under our previous system, we had artificially defined circuits around the world," said General Lepper.

With that system, he explained that there was one circuit in the Pacific, one in Europe and three in the U.S. Cases were scheduled based upon the circuit structure so that each circuit headquarters had a paralegal responsible for scheduling the five judges in his circuit when cases arose in that area of responsibility.

General Lepper stressed how operations would drastically improve with the new, single-office system.

"Now, we have one office in Washington," he said. "No longer will we have a situation where a judge on the East Coast may not have a case, and a judge is needed on the West Coast but there are not enough judges to go around."

With the new system, the single office can detail the judge from the East to West Coast and the Air Force can maintain a much higher operations tempo for Air Force judges.

"This allows a much lower turnaround time for cases going from investigation to trial," said General Lepper. "The transformation is intended to optimize the use of our assets. It will be a benefit to our commanders."

Another change is the creation of field support centers. The JAG Corps is creating FSCs in the areas of contract, environmental, operational, international and labor law.

"These FSCs' will be sources of expertise directly available to the wing legal offices," said General Dunlap. "Clients will still go to the wing legal offices for all of their legal needs. How the legal offices get answers will change because they will have available to them these centers of expertise. All the decisions will still be made by the local staff judge advocates, but they will have these experts to call on directly."

The Air Force has already seen one successful transformation to an FSC in the area of claims sections.

"The claims support center is the best example of how our transformation is impacting not only the JAG corps, but all the Airmen around the Air Force," said General Lepper. "Basically, that organization is comprised of one officer, who's the director, and about 80 enlisted paralegals, whose job is to process the personal property claims of all Airmen."

USAA Company's claims processing organization was the model that the JAG corps used to structure the Air Force claims support center and then established their own capabilities, said General Lepper.

"No longer will it be the case for our Airmen to go to (their local) legal office for claims support, they can still get questions answered or create a dialogue through their legal offices to the claims support center," he said. "Ultimately, our claims support center will receive all claims, process them and submit payment-vouchers through DFAS to pay the claims."

Now, the claims professionals are able to actually get payment to someone's claim in around eight days versus a process that previously took up to eight weeks, added General Dunlap.

The JAG Corps has achieved efficiencies not just because of the centralization, but now everyone who deals with a claim is an expert and deals with claims fulltime. Additionally, the center is opened 24 hours a day, which is good for Airmens' schedules; they don't have to work around the legal office's hours.

Throughout the discussion, the generals indicated that the changes to their career field have been to streamline processes, extend customer services and do it all with leaner methods and force.

In the area of Air Force Smart Operations for the 21st Century, or 'JAG Corps 21', as they like to call it, the generals proudly boasted that their JAG Corps is leading the way.