My name is Richard Tuckman . . . esquire. I’m a Starfleet officer, and I’m an attorney.
I graduated from Starfleet Academy in San Francisco, I earned my law
degree from Innes University Law School on Proxima Centauri b,
and for the last nineteen years I’ve served in Starfleet’s Judge Advocate General’s Corps.
No, most people don’t realize Starfleet has a JAG Corps. But, they do. The JAG
Corps has attorneys — officially called judge advocates — stationed at every Starfleet outpost,
on every starship. We are among the most knowledgeable legal minds in the known galaxy,
we have studied not only Federation law, but the legal systems of the Klingon Empire,
the Ferengi Alliance, Cardassia, Bajor, even the Romulan Star Empire.
So, if you’re a member of Starfleet, or even if you’re a civilian living
or working on a Starfleet ship, and you need legal advice or counsel,
we are more than capable of providing that service, and we are here. . . . Waiting.
It’s true, there’s not much demand for our services. For some reason,
command-level officers always want to act as their own attorneys when legal disputes arise,
even if they have no background in law whatsoever.
Being an effective attorney requires years of specialized education and training.
A lot of people don’t seem to realize that. I was actually surprised to realize how many
people don’t seem to realize that — even people who you assume would be
smart enough to know that practicing law requires more than skimming a few
case files on the computer and being able to make an eloquent speech don’t seem to get it.
Like, how can you get to be a captain and still not know that there’s more to being
a lawyer than knowing how to ask questions, and thinking your side is right? I just . . .
I’ll tell you a story. You might think it’s funny. I don’t. My first posting after I was admitted to
the bar was on the U.S.S. Trinidad. Three year deep space exploratory mission in the Mercarious
Sector. I was so nervous. I’d just been promoted to lieutenant. I was a brand new lawyer. I figured
I’d be the greenhorn in the ship’s JAG office, I was afraid of how the older, more experienced
lawyers would rib me, give me a hard time. But, it turns out I had nothing to worry about,
because it turns out I was the oldest and most experienced lawyer in the Trinidad’s JAG office,
because it turns out I was the only lawyer in the Trinidad’s JAG office! Ha! Ha! Ha!
Three years in deep space. Eleven first contacts. Encounters with hostile species,
at least two dozen, maybe more. Know how many times I spoke to a member of the command crew?
Twice. One time was when the chief of security was in line ahead of me at a buffet and she asked if
I wanted the last piece of red velvet cake, and I said “Yes, please” because red velvet
cake is my favorite, and she pretended that she misheard me and took it for herself anyway. How
do you mishear “Yes, please” as “No, you can have it”? Can you explain that to me?
. . . Double bourbon, neat.
Did you know you can reprogram the replicator to make real alcohol? Well, now you do.
That’s not legal advice, by the way. I’m not your lawyer. Heh heh heh . . .
I’m not anybody’s lawyer.
The second time I spoke to a member of the command crew on the Trinidad . . . was the captain. They
came to my office! About two and a half years into the mission. You know what they wanted?
To know if they could replicate notarized documents.
I said no, you need to have them notarized — which I can do, because I’m a registered notary-at-law.
They said, “Ah, very well, thank you,” and left and I never spoke to them again!
Know why they asked about notarized documents? I found out later it was because the ops officer had
a fling with a woman from this planet we visited, Kendriviax VIII, got her pregnant, she decided to
have the baby, but the Kendriviaxians, in addition to having a stunningly short gestation period,
also have very strict statutes when it comes to interspecies child custody agreements.
The ops officer was willing to cede full custody to the mother and renounce all parental rights,
but the paperwork had to be submitted and accepted before we could leave orbit,
plus there was a court proceeding which was really only a formality but which was also a
potential source of trouble because if the ops officer didn’t precisely follow the prescribed
procedure — like, for instance, if he wore gold to the hearing, which in the Kendriviaxian legal
system is the color you wear to indicate that you’re assuming an adversarial position
against the other party in the case — then it could trigger a mandatory custody hearing
where all sides would be required to present their best possible argument for why they should be the
child’s custodial parent, and if the judge decided the ops officer would be the better parent,
the ops officer would have no choice but to take the child — all of which is exactly what happened,
and is, it turns out, the reason we were in orbit above Kendriviax VIII for a week, because
guess who decided to represent the ops officer during this
arcane and convoluted legal process? That’s right! The captain themself!
They got a Kendriviaxian notary to . . . notarize the custody agreement, by the way.
Which I think they would have had to no matter what. But it would have been
nice to at least think I was gonna have something to do, you know? For a while?
I don’t tell many people this, but I’m not the first in my family to serve in the JAG Corps.
My sister. Kacey. She’s almost twenty years older than me. A year after she passed the bar,
she was posted to the Enterprise D. Brand new Galaxy class ship! Year two of that mission,
their ops officer, who was an android, is the subject of a hearing to decide whether
Starfleet owns him or he’s a free individual with civil rights that must be respected.
Kacey told me all about it, years ago, when I came home from my tour on the Trinidad.
She told me she was so excited. As soon as she heard what was going on, she got to work
building her case, putting together her arguments for why an individual still had civil rights even
if they were a synthetic life form instead of an organic one. It was the opportunity every young
lawyer dreams about, the chance to take part in a case that could set a far-reaching precedent
that would affect the lives of who knows how many people, across the entire Federation.
Then, she found out the senior JAG officer for that sector, who was presiding over the hearing,
had appointed the captain of the Enterprise as defense counsel,
and the first officer as prosecutor. The senior JAG officer! Did that!
No one even asked Kacey for help. She specialized in sentient rights law!
I’ve been very rude. Do you want anything? From the . . .
wall? The magic cubby hole that makes things?
She served on that ship for seven years.
They had so many trials, and hearings, and arbitrations. Senior officers accused of murder.
Every time someone needed a lawyer, the captain did it himself.
Not a lawyer. And if he couldn’t do it, he assigned the first officer to do it. Not a lawyer!
“Oh, but command track officers have to take some law classes” — which
means they’re just as qualified as someone who went to law school,
where all the classes are law classes, for three years? Is that the argument?
It broke her. They broke my sister. She left the service after that. But, now
she’s in private practice, works for a nice little firm that serves the colonies on the outer rim.
I saw her when she came home over Christmas and I asked her if I
could move out there and work with her, and you know what she said? She said,
“I don’t think I could sell you to the partners. You’ve been in the JAG Corps too long.”
‘Cause what they do is, they take you — they pick you up like a little baby bird and they handle
you and they get their fingers and their sweat all over you and then when you try to hop away,
the other birds don’t want you anymore! Because you stink!
If you needed your gallbladder replaced, would you ask me to do it? Of course not! You know
why? Because I’m not a doctor! When people get sick on a starship, they go to sickbay, but
when they need a lawyer it’s like the JAG office ain’t even there!
How come starship captains don’t assume they can practice medicine the same way
they assume they can practice law? That’s like a really specific form of narcissism, right?
How come they have Emergency Medical Holograms but not Emergency Legal Holograms? Ehh?
Think about it.
Would I recommend serving in the JAG Corps as a career for young members of Starfleet? . . .
Sure. It has its benefits. Look at me. I’m a full-pip commander. I have all the privileges
of being an officer, and — literally — none of the responsibilities. You get assigned
to a starship as a JAG officer and it is the most low pressure job on that fucking boat,
I guarantee you. And the safest! You think I worry about getting merked on an away mission? Nope!
You know, I used to think Starfleet hated lawyers, and that’s why they treat the JAG Corps like this,
but now I think it’s the other way. I think maybe lawyers were the architects of our invisibility,
because they were sick and tired of doing everybody else’s paperwork,
and cleaning up everybody else’s messes, and safeguarding everybody else’s rights,
and they were goddamned if they were gonna have to carry all that shit out into outer space!
So way back when Starfleet was being laid out,
they fixed things this way, so all the future Starfleet lawyers could just relax, and have the
easiest jobs in the fleet, and see the stars, and all it costs us is a few extra years of school,
and our pride, and our professionalism, and our self respect,
and our hopes for meaning and purpose in our lives, and that’s it!
I’d advise you to take that deal! If I was your attorney, that is, which I’m not!
. . . Do you need an attorney at all? . . . Or a notary? Because I am a notary.
I have a stamp and everything. Do you want to be a notary?
Oh, fuck, hang on.
Here you go. Now you’re a notary. Very important job, because
the magic cubby hole doesn’t make notarized documents.
. . . but it does make the stamps.