The first Advocacy Center in the Department of Defense opened on Fort Belvoir, Virginia earlier this month.
Designed to consolidate advocacy training for the Army’s legal professionals, the center provides a centralized location for members of the service’s Judge Advocate General Corps to attend training courses in both civil and military justice litigation.
“This is truly a major development for the Army and for the DoD,” said Lt. Col. Theo Voudouris, the center’s operations officer, said in April. “No facilities outside of the Justice Department have this.”
The opening ceremony for the $7 million, nearly 9,300 square-foot facility took place on May 5 and was hosted by Army Judge Advocate General Lt. Gen. Stuart W. Risch.
“This will change us from effective practitioners to expert practitioners in our field,” he said during the event. “This will be the crown jewel of litigation and advocacy training for the DoD.”
The facility will offer civil litigation courses in topics such as deposition training and an electronic evidence course.
“The intent is to have everyone come in for hands-on, state-of-the-art training, from a group of experts,” Voudouris said last month.
The center is modeled after the Justice Department’s National Advocacy Center in Columbia, South Carolina. Classes are currently underway, with courses scheduled through the fiscal year, which ends in September.
Reach Julia LeDoux at Julia@connectingvets.com.
