Litigation and Leadership are our focus areas and here you will find a wide variety of COLE-Leadership resources aimed at developing the Leadership, Followership, Professionalism (and for our Air Force Judge Advocate colleagues Officership) skills of leaders old and new. PrimeCOLE has been a lawyer and leader for nearly 30 years and through trials and errors found a way to be successful leading hundreds of entry-level to senior-level attorneys and more importantly recruiting his friends to help develop all the materials below. If you have something you think would benefit the leadership development of the “youngs” or the “olds” send it along and we will load it up.
Two Old JAG Chatting Over Coffee: Starting Your SJA (Leadership) Gig Strong
Description: The trilogy is now complete. It may not match the Godfather, Lord of the Rings, Back to the Future, or original Star Wars trilogies, but we tried. Following the 99 Rules for Surviving [and Thriving] as a Staff Judge Advocate! and How-To Leadership, this session dives deep into specific tips to prepare to take over an organization (a Wing Legal Office) and mold it to your vision over the first ~6 months. Very tactically focused, some lessons learned from a couple JAGs who have learned those lessons by trial and error.
Here they are: COMING SOON
Two Old JAGs+ Chatting Over Coffee: How-To Leadership
Description: A sequel to our Rules For Surviving as a CGO Judge Advocate and 99 Rules for Surviving [and Thriving] as a Staff Judge Advocate!, the Old JAGs and friends identified 12 leadership principles and discussed why each is important generally and then drilled down to specific ways to exercise the principles on a day-to-day basis. Those principles are:
Here they are: Old JAGs How To Leadership vDISTRO
Three Old JAGs Chatting Over Coffee: Rules for Surviving [and Thriving] as a Staff Judge Advocate!
Description: Building off the [88] Rules for Surviving as a CGO Judge Advocate! we put together and presented at a January 2022 Two Old Guys Chatting Over Coffee web/podcast, we put together the [99] Rules for Surviving [and Thriving] as a Staff Judge Advocate! and presented at a March 2022 Three Old JAGs Chatting Over Coffee web/podcast. Though there is no single magic bullet in these Rules, no one “thing” that will allow you to survive and thrive as you start (or continue) your SJA assignment, following Rules will serve as a foundation of not just survival but success.
Here they are: The Rules for SJA Success
Bonus: Col Robertson SJA Tips PPT
Two Old Guys Chatting Over Coffee: Rules for Surviving as a CGO Judge Advocate!
Description: The ultimate list of what-we-wish-we-had-known-or-been-told-when-we-were-starting out Rules for CGO Judge Advocates. Presented in January 2022, these [88] Rules give young legal professionals the professional guidance they need to succeed. The rest is up to you.
Document: The Rules for CGO Success
Email Professionalism
DESCRIPTION: Lead by Lt Col Rosenow (then 86 AW/DSJA), with Col Kearley, Col Swart, and Col BT assisting, this hour-long discussion of basic email professionalism focused on how to read (!), prepare, respond to, and organize emails. [Experience suggests every new JAG should be required to listen to this podcast].
What is The FLOP Club? It’s the Followership, Leadership, Officership, Professionalism Club!
DESCRIPTION: The F.L.O.P. Club is an opportunity for senior JAG mentors to get together with junior JAGs on a monthly basis in a friendly atmosphere to pass on the real-world followership, leadership, officership, and professionalism skills they will need to thrive and survive in their JAGC careers. From email etiquette, to how to communicate with senior officers/commanders, to developing a leadership style, to functioning as a member of a team in competitive environments, to treating subordinates with dignity and respect, to giving and receiving feedback, to leading from below, and more, The F.L.O.P. Club’s goal is to provide practical advice and start junior JAGs thinking what each aspect of the F.L.O.P. skills mean to them as they start to apply them on a day-to-day basis. Invite linked below, email if you are interested in access to the Teams page with resources and invites for future events. Or steal this construct and start your own FLOP Club.
SpeedLead
DESCRIPTION: A speed-dating inspired event that was chaotic fun and provided our CGOs multiple (quick) opportunities to interact with a range of senior JAGC leaders. Essentially we set senior leaders (O-6/O-7 JAGs) in individual Zoom breakout rooms and the CGOs went from room to room every five minutes asking leadership questions. In Session Two of the event, we had CGOs go from room to room answering questions about their own budding leadership philosophies. A how-to guide to hosting a SpeedLead event of your own is linked below.
FLOP SpeedLead Instructions Exercises: Developing a Leadership Philosophy Exercise
Leadership Philosophies
Every needs one and at some point you are going to have to have one to be taken seriously as a leader. Good thing is that there are lots of examples to start you thinking. Here are a few:
A Janitor’s 10 Lessons in Leadership
The ADC & ME: Can't We All Just Get Along!!
Description: Communication is the key to any good relationship, and that is no more true than in the Area Defense Counsel/Trial Counsel relationship. You all used to be friends in the Legal Office and then one of you goes to the ADC Office and something happens. Professional disagreements are personalized. Zealousness undermines friendships. And the breakdown threatens the civility that trial practitioners should strive for. So we gathered six of the top sitting Air Force ADCs to talk about what they do and why they do it, among other topics. Understanding and communication go a long way towards civility, listen and you’ll get lots of all of that.
Time Management for Young Professionals (CGOs) -- You've Got the Time!!
Feeling overwhelmed? Can’t seem to ever get ahead let alone caught up? Emails overflowing your inbox? Everything is important to everyone except your time? Just reading this taking too much of your time? … Take a breath, take 90 minutes, and let’s see if we can’t find some solutions/offer some tips honed by trials and errors and years of refining to help you try to manage your time more effectively.
This session was The FLOP Club + TedTalk as our all-star Reservist Lt Col Jill Thomas put the results of our survey of the field on stressors and challenges into context of her system of time-management sanity honed over 20 years as a active-duty and reserve judge advocate and prosecutor with the Department of Justice. Great stuff.
In addition to the webcast, we are attaching the slides with notes, the vignettes that supported the post-webcast small group sessions (if you want the answers you’ll have to email me: brianmthompson@yahoo.com), and a link to the GoodReads account where the books and podcasts referenced are linked.
Time Management PPT w_TedTalk Notes‘
Time Management Vignettes (Small Group Discussion)
GoodReads The FLOP Club Book & Podcast
Hey What About US -- Resources for Deputies
Let’s face it, being a Deputy Staff Judge Advocate is tough. You’re in the In Between … a foot in the CGO “camp” and a foot in the leadership “camp” (hopefully bullets not flying from either camp to the other, but that has happened more than once or twice in the storied history of the JAG Corps). You have a ton of responsibility, but it often feels like no authority. Unlike Staff Judge Advocates who get a whole two week course to prepare for the role, you’re simply thrown in the deep end to sink or swim. Hopefully you have a strong leader to learn from, but that has not happened more than once or twice in the storied history of the JAG Corps. So even though everything else on this COLE – Leadership is useful and applies to you, you deserve your own section and here it is!
1. First up, just awesome, this very detailed and very excellent how-to deputy guide from Maj Justina O-P Hooper: So TJAG entrusted you to be a Deputy! v1 Feb 22