That sentence, lifted from a two-page memo reviewed by Defense One, lays out a sweeping, open-ended effort by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to remake how the Department of Defense evaluates and manages its military and civilian legal corps. The initiative is framed as a sustained program of interim reports and immediate reforms, and it arrives on the heels of a string of abrupt personnel moves and policy directives that have already reshaped the department’s legal ecosystem.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s May 8 memo: scope and objectives
Hegseth ordered the panel in a May 8 memo to service secretaries, the Joint Chiefs staff, the military’s criminal investigation divisions, and both uniformed and civilian legal offices. Defense One reviewed the two-page memo after the Defense Department declined to provide the document. The memo instructs that the review “will operate on a sustained basis rather than producing a single end-of-review report,” delivering interim reports and recommendations as issues are completed, with periodic updates to the secretary.
The memo spells out goals for the review: “cut unnecessary bureaucracy, strengthen training and organization, refine culture, and professionalize military justice implementation and command advice.” Hegseth wrote the effort is “not about diminishing the essential role of our uniformed and civilian legal experts” but to support “effective legal advice that upholds the rule of law while enabling maximum mission effectiveness and decisive action.”
Earl Matthews to convene the panel
The memo designates Earl Matthews, the Defense Department’s general counsel, to convene the panel. It will report to Hegseth through interim products intended to drive immediate reforms. The Defense Department’s public-facing spokesperson told Defense One that the May 8 memo differs from a March directive that split duties between Judge Advocate Generals and general counsel offices, but declined to describe how it differs or to share findings produced in response to the earlier directive.
Defense One also reported that at least one service branch submitted a plan last month to deconflict duties between uniformed and civilian lawyers and the Pentagon, according to a defense legal insider cited in the coverage.
Recent changes: firings, a commission, and an earlier March directive
The May 8 action follows a series of aggressive moves by Hegseth since taking office. In his first weeks, Hegseth fired the Army, Navy, and Air Force’s top lawyers, saying they were “roadblocks to orders that are given by a commander in chief.” The next month he commissioned his personal lawyer into the Navy’s JAG corps. In March, Defense One reported on a memo that ordered a split of duties between Judge Advocate Generals and general counsel offices — a change that raised concerns among military lawyers that it could weaken independent legal oversight.
The memo and the personnel changes are part of a broader pattern in which military lawyers have been shifted into non-traditional roles: in the first year of the Trump administration the department greenlit the temporary assignment of more than 600 JAGs to work for the Justice Department as immigration judges. Earlier this year the department temporarily assigned dozens of military lawyers as federal prosecutors to support law-enforcement surges in Minneapolis and other cities. Hegseth, who authorized those assignments, has also complained that “military lawyers are sometimes stuck doing civilian side work,” calling it evidence of mismanagement in legal shops.
Pushback from retired JAGs and current legal practitioners — Steve Lepper’s critique
Current and former military lawyers interviewed by Defense One expressed skepticism about the new panel. Steve Lepper, a retired Air Force lawyer and member of a group of former JAGs critical of the administration’s military actions, said the move looks like a power grab that substitutes Hegseth’s panel for a Congressionally-created oversight body the secretary dismantled last year.
“What the Pentagon here is doing is, they're basically wrestling from Congress this oversight of the JAG Corps and substituting his own panel for the panel they dismantled,” Lepper said. He also told Defense One that he hears uniformed lawyers are not being asked to provide input on legal opinions for operations such as the Iran conflict and “boat strikes,” and that many legal opinions are being drafted by the White House Office of Legal Counsel and handed to JAGs for implementation.
What this means for current military lawyers, Congress, and commanders
- Current military lawyers: The department’s plan for an ongoing review, interim reports, and immediate reforms will likely place sustained reporting and procedural change demands on uniformed and civilian legal offices already described as stretched thin by prior temporary assignments.
- Congress: Retired JAGs cited by Defense One view the new panel as encroaching on a role previously vested in a Congressionally-created oversight body; the memo’s language about previous statutory reviews and GAO reports signals an intent to supersede prior, legislatively-rooted assessments.
- Commanders and warfighters: Hegseth framed the panel as intended to “deliver the legal support our commanders and troops deserve” by professionalizing military justice implementation and command advice, and he tasked the panel to produce interim recommendations that can drive “immediate reforms” affecting how commanders receive legal counsel.
The secretary’s directive establishes a long-running institutional effort with a single visible product: serial, actionable reports to the secretary designed to change practice in near real time. Defense officials have declined to produce the memo for wider release or to explain how this effort differs from the March directive that unsettled JAG and general counsel relations. At least one service has already submitted a plan to deconflict duties, and the Pentagon has assigned a known legal leader — Earl Matthews — to run the review.
Whether periodic interim reports will resolve tensions between uniformed legal advice, civilian counsel, and Executive Branch legal offices — and whether Congress will accept a department-led review in place of earlier statutory mechanisms — are immediate questions the May 8 memo leaves in plain view.
