In the 1960’s, the armed services of the United States made a change from using active duty military judges to using civilian ones. While there are several civilian Army and Navy judges on the Armed Services Board of Contract Appeals, there hasn’t been an Air Force judge on the board…until now. UDSL alumna Diana Dickinson is preparing to move from Dayton to Washington, D.C. in October to become the first civilian Air Force judge in U.S. military history.
Dickinson was in her thirties when she became a UDSL student. After 15 years in corporate accounting management, she decided to pursue an interest in employment law. While she was a UDSL student, she was accepted into an intern program with Wright Patterson Air Force Base (the program ended in 1990).
She accepted a job at the base when she graduated in 1989 and worked her way from a GS-9 to GS-15 grade, to the position of deputy chief trial attorney for the Air Force. One year ago she was asked to apply to be a judge.
In her career Dickinson said she has handled complex civil litigation cases ranging from those dealing with major weapons systems worth millions of dollars, to those dealing with moving service men and women’s household items worth hundred of dollars.
Dickinson calls Wright Patterson “the largest single-purpose law firm in town. I had cases right out of law school that partners in town will never have,” she said.
One early case that stands out for Dickinson involved the Air Force’s cost accounting standards. The case, which is still cited today, was won in the appeals process and carried a financial impact estimated at $130 million of annual savings for the Department of Defense.
She is already familiar with her new turf; half of the cases she’s tried have been in the Armed Services courtroom in D.C., she said. But she said she hopes to address some frustrations in her new role, citing the quote “You must be the change you want to see in the world” as her motto.
“There’s a lot of room for improvement where technology is concerned,” she said. “Right now there no electronic filing, no sharing of information, which affects, in particular, discovery.”
Dickinson’s old office at Wright Patterson is being consolidated by the Judge Advocate General, so that all litigation functions for the military will be housed in one office in Washington, D.C. “I love my job here, but either way I was going to go to D.C., so I would rather go as a judge,” she said.
The Armed Services Board currently comprises 20 judges and tries all Defense Department cases, as well as acts as mediators and arbitrators. There is a separate board for civilian government departments, such as the Post Office.