On September 4, GW Law’s National Security, Cybersecurity, & Foreign Relations Law Program, in cooperation with the Veteran Law Students Association (VLSA), held its annual Veterans Welcome Back Reception, featuring several distinguished guests, including Tiffany M. Wagner, LLM, 2010, Colonel (Ret.), U.S. Air Force, and Clerk of the US Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims (CAVC) and GW Law’s Steven Schooner, a retired Army Judge Advocate General’s Corps Reserve Officer and the Jeffrey & Martha Kohn Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Nash and Cibinic Professor of Government Procurement Law.
This reception offered the GW Law community, including veteran, active duty, reserve, national guard, and prospective JAG students, staff, faculty, and friends of veterans the opportunity to meet, network, and learn more about opportunities and experiences in veterans and military law. Students from the VLSA, Military Law Society, and National Security Law Association made especially strong showings.
Col. Wagner gave engaging remarks regarding how valuable different perspectives can be for attorneys, drawing from her diverse experiences as a prosecutor, defense counsel, supervisory attorney, military trial judge, and an advisor on operational and environmental law. She emphasized how the experiences in these varied roles help inform her current work. Senior Associate Dean Schooner highlighted GW Law’s longstanding connection to the military and its role in building robust government procurement and national security law programs. He also spoke of his and his father’s military service and expressed his gratitude for the service represented in GW Law’s veteran community.
Col.. Wagner currently serves as the CAVC’s Executive Director and Clerk of Court and oversees the Court's administrative operations, including the processing of over 7,500 appeals and petitions annually. Prior to her appointment at the Court, Col. Wagner served in uniform for 21 years, retiring from active duty as a Colonel in the Air Force Judge Advocate General’s Corps. She also served as the Executive Director for The Judge Advocate General. In her last military assignment, she was the Legal Director for the Air Force Review Boards Agency, where she led a team advising and supporting 12 Department of Defense and Department of the Air Force boards to ensure due process, fairness, and justice in administrative actions.
Attendees of all ranks, services, law school statuses, and ages enjoyed refreshments and mingled with one another.
