Commander, Naval Air Force, U.S. Pacific Fleet

By Seaman Ryan Hicks

On board USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72), on the second deck, between the forward and aft mess decks, on the starboard side of the ship, is a door with a sign that reads "Legal Office." Like any small city, an aircraft carrier must also have its own legal institution. According to Chief Petty Officer Shelia Chaney, Abe’s senior legalman, the department deals mainly with three matters.

First, in the case of incidents requiring disciplinary action above the department level, the ship’s legalmen are responsible for generating the appropriate legal documentation. "Our primary task is dealing with disciplinary issues," said Chaney. "We take care of nonjudicial punishments, courts-martial, and disciplinary review boards. Our mission is to draft the report chits involved in these processes and make sure they are legally correct. What the rest of the ship does is to basically document what happened."

"Our secondary task is to provide general customer service. We can handle matters such as wills, buying property, and other basic legal matters," Chaney said. "People come in with a myriad of questions about all sorts of things. Unfortunately, we spend so much time on disciplinary issues that we don’t get to spend as much time on customer service as we’d like. However, we still do have customer service hours on every day but Sunday."

"Our third task is to teach the squadrons how to hold their own NJP sessions," Chaney continued. The air wing has the option to take its members to Captain’s Mast, and the Legal Department can show them how to do it.

So what is the difference between a typical civilian law firm and Abraham Lincoln’s Legal Department?

"It’s mostly a matter of specialization," Chaney said. "We are like a jack-of-all-trades; we can answer most general questions, but we don’t have the specialists available that civilians do. Normally, a person would contact a bankruptcy lawyer about bankruptcy, or a family lawyer about family issues. We have to handle all of these questions. We don’t know it all, but we can always at least tell folks what they can do to get some help."

Not only must they be able to handle everything that comes their way, they must also do it with a staff composed of only seven people. Lt. Cmdr. David Dow is the officer in charge and also serves as the legal assistant to the commanding officer. Below him, there’s Lt.j.g. Wade Allen, Chaney, Legalman 1st Class Victoria Forsee, Legalman 2nd Class Malinda Schreffler, Legalman 3rd Class Laureen Connors, and Seaman NitaFay Holliday. These seven take care of every legal matter on board.

As for working in the Legal Department, Holliday said what she likes the most is that she has the opportunity to help people.

"We get a lot of different people coming through here, for all sorts of different reasons, but when they come in here, it’s good to know that I am in a position to help them."

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