Jennifer Marett investigates the little-known position of National Security Council Legal Advisor. Drawing on a wide range of historical material as well as interviews with several previous holders of the position, Marett traces its roles and responsibilities from inception through the current administration. She concludes by identifying several contemporary institutional challenges affecting this important intelligence community role.
Category Archives: Teaching National Security Law
Developing Client-Ready Practitioners: Learning How to Practice National Security Law at Military Law Schools
The demand for trained and educated national security lawyers, including those in the military, is not going to lessen. The challenge is to meet the increasing demand with shrinking resources. The military services must first identify national security law as a core, mission-essential discipline. The services should integrate the joint and perhaps inter-agency legal community into the existing process for identifying and deconflicting legal education requirements. The services should also consider whether lawyers can learn certain aspects of national security law through civilian legal education and distance learning rather than brick-and-mortar military schoolhouses.
National Security Law Pedagogy and the Role of Simulations
This article challenges the dominant pedagogical assumptions in the legal academy. It begins by briefly considering the state of the field of national security law, noting the rapid expansion in employment and the breadth of related positions that have been created post-9/11. It considers, in the process, how the legal academy has, as an institutional matter, responded to the demand. The article then proposes a new model for national security legal education, based on innovations currently underway at Georgetown Law. It points to a new model of legal education that advances students in their pedagogical goals, while complementing, rather than supplanting, the critical intellectual discourse that underlies the value of higher legal education.